A retired Foreign Service officer was sentenced to 5 years in prison on Thursday for a hate crime that prosecutors said involved over 700 threatening emails sent to Arab American Institute employees over the course of five years, including death threats. According to the Justice Department, 61-year-old William Patrick Syring was convicted in May for seven hate crime charges and seven interstate threats charges in relation to his malicious messages to the AAI—allegedly spurred by employees’ race and the organization’s “efforts to encourage Arab Americans to participate in political and civic life.” The Washington Post reports that Syring served two tours in Beirut and had a 25-year State Department career before he pleaded guilty in 2008 to leaving threatening voicemails to the AAI. “The only good Arab is a dead Arab,” he reportedly said in a 2006 voicemail, adding that “Arabs are dogs” and “death to Lebanon and death to Arabs.” He retired from the department in 2007, but kept harassing AAI employees after he served his sentence for the first conviction, according to the Post.
