Immigrant dies after racist beating

NEW YORK, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- An immigrant from Ecuador has died, days after he was attacked in what appeared to be a racist hate crime in New York, relatives said Saturday.

Jose O. Sucuzhanay had been declared brain-dead Tuesday, The New York Times reported. A spokesman for his family, Francisco Moya, said his mother was traveling from Ecuador to see her son when Sucuzhanay died Friday night a Elmhurst General Hospital in Queens.

Sucuzhanay and his brother, Romel, were attacked Dec. 6 near his real estate business in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Romel told police they were walking home from a bar when three men wielding baseball bats jumped out of a sport utility vehicle.

The men yelled slurs against Hispanics and gays, Romel, who escaped without serious injury, said.

"We're going on now a week with no news about his attackers or his killers," Moya said. "It's deeply disturbing."