Two men were charged with hate crimes on Thursday after they attacked a Muslim religious leader on a New York City subway train, the authorities said.
The attack occurred early Wednesday morning on a northbound A train, when one of the men confronted the victim — who was wearing a traditional African hat called a kufi — and harassed him about his clothing and religion, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a complaint filed in Criminal Court in Manhattan.
That suspect, Albert Melendez, 30, was quoted as making an ethnic slur and then saying, “I don’t like Muslims.”
