American basketball player says Bucharest stabbing was ‘hate-crime’

One of two American basketball players stabbed in Bucharest at the weekend claims the assault was a racially-motivated hate crime.

Darrell Bowie, 24, and Joseph McClain, 25, who signed for ACS Cuza Sport de Braila last month, were attacked in the city on Saturday night while out with team-mates.

Both men were rushed to a local hospital where they underwent surgery for wounds to the chest, stomach and, in the case of Bowie, to the lungs.

“It basically seemed like a hate crime, like he targeted us because we’re black,” McClain tells Romanian television channel Antena 3.

“We didn’t say anything to him. We were just there trying to enjoy ourselves.”

A suspect, believed to be in his 40s, handed himself in to police shortly after the attack, which police are treating as attempted murder.

Reports claim the suspect is reputedly violent and previously spent seven years in prison in Spain for rape and his role in a prostitution ring.

In 2011, an American basketball player, Chauncey Hardy, 23, died following injuries from a fight in a nightclub.

His aggressor was eventually jailed, in 2013, for seven years.

— AFP