Chapel Hill shooter of young Muslim students indicted for murder

Craig Hicks, the man charged with shooting and killing three Muslim students in a Chapel Hill condominium complex last week, was indicted by a grand jury Monday on three counts of first-degree murder, according to The Associated Press.

The Durham County grand jury returned three counts of murder against the 46-year-old Hicks in the deaths of Deah Barakat, 21, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Razan Abu-Salha, 19. Hicks lived next door to the trio. According to local CBS affiliate WRAL, Hicks was also indicted on a firearms charge.

The crime has sparked debate over racial and religious justice. Authorities have said the shootings were motivated by a parking dispute, but they haven’t ruled out the possibility of bias as a motivator. Amira Ata, one of the victims’ friends, told Fusion last week that she believes it was a hate crime, as does the father of two of the victims.

The FBI and the Justice Department’s civil-rights division are also investigating the case to determine whether “any federal laws, including hate crime laws, were violated,” Attorney General Eric Holder said last week.

Hicks allegedly posted a photo of his loaded gun on Facebook last month, and has posts on the site proclaiming himself a “militant atheist.” Friends and family members have said that he had previously threatened all three victims.

Barakat, a Syrian-American who was a second-year dental student at the University of North Carolina, and Yusor Abu-Salha were newlyweds. Barakat had been planning a trip to Turkey this summer to provide dental care for refugees of Syria’s civil war. Ata said Abu-Salha had gone there last year.