A Georgetown professor allegedly hit a State Department worker outside Lauinger Library last Thursday, prompting the woman to bite him and the professor’s wife to call her a “cannibal.”
According to police accounts, Ibrahim Oweiss, a School of Foreign Service-Qatar economics professor, hit Michelina Bonnano in her face with a closed fist while she sat inside her car Sept. 10. A Metropolitan Police Department incident report said that Bonnano, a former Georgetown professor and a current employee of the State Department, responded to the alleged assault by biting his right hand.
Bonnano said Thursday that she was packing items into her parked car near Lauinger when she saw Oweiss and his wife, Georgetown French professor Celine Oweiss, running toward her. Bonnano said she got into her car and rolled her window down at which point Ibrahim Oweiss started grabbing the identification card around her neck.
“He started grabbing at my ID and pulling it and he just punched me in my face and knocked off my glasses,” she said. “He grabbed me and wouldn’t let go and I bit him to get him away from me.”
A Georgetown student had to pull Oweiss off Bonnano, she said. She added that she reported the assault to several passing Department of Public Safety officers who took a report.
Ibrahim Oweiss could not be reached for comment Thursday because he was in Qatar but his wife insisted that he had not struck Bonnano and that Bonnano had bit him without provocation.
“We have cannibals on campus,” she said. “Her car and another car were blocking the little hole leading to the library. It was urgent for us to leave and we had waited a long time.”
Celine Oweiss said that her husband was only trying to look at Bonnano’s Georgetown ID tag hanging around her neck when she bit him.
“He did not hit her and she has no signs of attack or anything. This is like Mike Tyson biting the ear of his adversary. It’s incredible the aggressiveness we witnessed,” Celine Oweiss said.
The MPD incident report said that Ibrahim Oweiss had a cut on his hand and that Bonnano suffered a cut and bruising above her left eye. Both were taken by GERMS to Georgetown University Medical Center and released, the report said.
Ibrahim Oweiss was not arrested, but both Celine Oweiss and Bonnano said that they are contemplating taking legal action.
An official at the SFS Dean’s office referred inquiries about the incident to history professor Peter Dunkley, who could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The incident was the latest in a series of reported assaults on campus over the last few weeks, including one that left a Georgetown graduate student severely injured. The student, identified by university professor Olga Meerson as Ph.D. candidate ikail Mamedov, was assaulted near Reservoir Road, only blocks off campus on Sept. 6.
Meerson said that Mamedov is currently hospitalized with a medically-induced coma.
“It’s important that people should know that they should think about him and pray for him,” she said.
Members of the university community attended a Russian Orthodox service Tuesday in Copley Crypt to comfort Mamedov’s family and pray for his recovery.
“It’s quite telling how much the students love him,” Meerson said. “He’s right on the verge of the fight, and there’s something almost martyr-like in his suffering.”
Hoya Staff Writer Alex Schank contributed to this report.
