Zarghee Mayan, 28, was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon after he allegedly struck 36-year-old Arhaf Alami twice in the stomach with the piece of wood at the South Orange Blossom Trail restaurant, police said.
Zarghee Mayan, who was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and grew up in New York City, runs a fried chicken restaurant in Orlando. He told VOA that, like a majority of people in Orlando, the attack caught him by surprise.
"I think this was a cowardly attack.
The people in Orlando and entire America, we keep going through terrorist acts like this by cowardly people. It is hurting us as Afghan-Americans over here," Mayan said. "Everywhere I have been today, I have seen people looking at me the wrong way. I hear people talking wrong [and saying bad things] about Muslims."
