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Family of hit-and-run victim asks driver to come forward

By DNAinfo Staff on May 22, 2012 3:34pm

The family of hit-and-run victim Amjad Barakat are asking the driver to turn himself in.
The family of hit-and-run victim Amjad Barakat are asking the driver to turn himself in.
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Flickr/Linus Henning

BAY RIDGE — The family of 34-year-old hit-and-run victim Amjad Barakat urged the driver of the beige sedan that killed the father of two to turn himself in to police.

A pained look overtook the face of Aiman Abdallah, Barakat’s brother-in-law, as he implored the driver to come forward.

"If it was an accident, nothing is going to happen to you," Abdallah said. "If you’re scared and you ran, I don’t know why you did that."

Barakat was killed shortly before 9 p.m. on Monday as he was walking across 72nd Street at Seventh Avenue in Bay Ridge.

The driver of the beige four-door sedan that hit Barakat is still at large.

Abdallah says he and other family members canvassed the area around the accident scene "all night long" searching for a camera that may have captured the incident, but they came up empty.

Barakat, an American citizen by birth, had returned to Brooklyn from Jerusalem four months ago. His wife and two daughters are still living there.  

Abdallah and Barakat’s brother will claim the body Tuesday, before it is sent back to his family in Jerusalem. He said he hopes that the accident will, at the very least, lead the city to investigate the dangerous nature of that intersection.

"That street is a terrible street," Abdallah said. "The overpass empties out right into the street. I think the city should do something."