Steve Bennett wrote:
On 5/20/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
"John Allen Muhammad (born John Allen Williams on December 31, 1960) is an American serial killer. Together with his younger partner Lee Boyd Malvo, he carried out the Beltway sniper attacks in an apparent attempt to extort $10 million dollars during his shooting spree."
Out of curiosity, why do you think nationality ("American") is relevant, but not race, place of birth etc? Can we formalise some guidelines? When is race relevant? Presumably if someone is the victim of a race hate crime...but when else? I don't think in an encyclopaedia we can ever refrain from mentioning something like that, but we can take "not relevant" to mean "not in the lead".
In this case it is probably harmless. It localizes events in the killer's own country. It would be a little trickier if the killer were not American.
The fact that he adopted the name Muhammad (a typically islamic name) could be problematical.
Ec