UVA to honour Muslim soldier, graduate who died in combat

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – A Muslim American soldier whose combat death in Iraq was described in a centerpiece speech at this year’s Democratic National Convention will be honoured with a plaque at his alma mater, the University of Virginia.

The plaque will be dedicated this spring in memory of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, UVA officials said In a statement Thursday.

Khan graduated in 2000 and was killed by a car bomb in Iraq in 2004. He posthumously received the Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart.

“Humayun’s actions saved other lives,” Army Lt. Col. Hampton E. Hite said in 2004 at a memorial ceremony for Khan.

His parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, had immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan. They told his story during in a speech that criticized the anti-Muslim rhetoric of then-Republican nominee and now president-elect Donald Trump.

“We brought a high school graduate to Mr. Jefferson’s University. And he turned into a patriot and a public servant,” Khizr Khan is quoted saying of his son in the university’s news release. “He lived that tradition to his last breath.”

A UVA committee on Friday approved installing the plaque outside the university’s Rotunda, where other plaques honour alumni killed in wars.