LAT: Student's Slaying Fills Baghdad University With Rage

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Student's Slaying Fills University With Rage
By Ashraf Khalil, Times Staff Writer


BAGHDAD — The death of a Shiite Muslim student activist last week has convulsed Baghdad University with a chain of protests, threats and recriminations, shutting down classes for several days.

Students have staged sometimes destructive demonstrations, demanding the expulsion of professors with ties to Iraq's former Baathist regime and calling some of them out by name. Fearing for his life, the dean of the college of pharmacy left the country and vowed not to return.

"I can't go back. I have to protect my life and the life of my children," said Mustafa Hiti, who fled the school last Tuesday after protesters tried to break into his office. The Sunni Muslim dean, who was interviewed by telephone from an undisclosed location, said he planned to seek asylum in "any civilized country."

Hiti became the focus of student rage after a Shiite pharmacy student named Masar Sarhan was killed by gunmen May 2, hours after holding an on-campus celebration to welcome the new government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, who is also a Shiite. During the party, Sarhan got into an argument with one of Hiti's bodyguards, several students said.

Grief over Sarhan's death turned to anger against Hiti, fueled by rumors of a threat against Sarhan by the bodyguard and by the fact that the dean hails from a town in western Iraq that has been a noted center of Baathist power....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-college10may10,0,7880774.story?coll=la-home-world