By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The brutal attack on a Muslim cab driver is exactly what the terrorists wanted when they attacked on 9/11, Gov. David Paterson said Thursday.
The repeated stabbing of cab driver Ahmed Hassan Sharif, "should certainly compel us to remembering... that this is what the terrorists really want," Paterson said in an interview on the John Gambling radio show.
"This is the terrorists getting a yield on their investment when they attacked this country and blew up the World Trade Center, that we're now fighting each other," he said. "This is making their day."
Sharif, a 43-year-old Bangladesh native who lives in Queens, was repeatedly stabbed in an alleged hate crime attack by a drunken film student Tuesday night.
Michael Enright, 21, of Brewster, N.Y., who been charged with attempted murder and assault as a hate crime, asked Sharif if he was Muslim when he entered the cab, police said.
When Sharif responded yes, Enright yelled "al salaam a'alaykum," the Arabic greeting meaning "peace upon you," at Sharif and then said, "Consider this a checkpoint," according to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
He then pulled out a Leatherman pocketknife tool and stabbed Sharif from the backseat at least five times in the throat, the upper lip, the left forearm, the right arm and the hand, they said.
Sharif and family are scheduled to meet with Mayor Michael Bloomberg at City Hall at 12:30 p.m. Bloomberg said the invitation would show Sharif that neither "ethnic or religious bias has a place in our city."
“This attack runs counter to everything that New Yorkers believe, no matter what God we may pray to," Bloomberg said. "We will continue to do everything possible to crack down on any crime that targets someone because of who they are or what they believe.”
In a statement, Sharif that he felt very "sad" and he'd "never feel this hopeless and insecure before."
"Right now, the public sentiment is very serious [because of the Ground Zero mosque debate]," he said, urging all cab drivers to be careful.
But on Thursday, Paterson refused to say that the attack "is because of the situation" and will wait for the investigation to end before making any conclusions.
In a statement Wednesday, Paterson said that it was fear of this type of violence that led him to call for a "respectful and unifying conversation about the Park51 project," as the mosque and community center near Ground Zero is known.
"In the wake of the alleged hate crime against a New York City taxi driver, I must take this opportunity to remind New Yorkers that we cannot and will not allow bias and ignorance to infect our communities and deny our hard working, innocent residents the respect they deserve," Paterson's statement read.
