A former Savannah River Site employee claims he suffered racial and religious discrimination at the hands of his coworkers.

Al Zeiny, 41, formerly of Aiken, now living in California, was lead structural engineer at Washington Safety Management Solutions LLC (WSMS), where he was employed from Jan. 7, 2007, until Oct. 8, 2009.

Zeiny filed a lawsuit against his former employer on Wednesday in the Aiken division of the U.S. District Court, claiming he was denigrated and humiliated because of his religious beliefs.

According to the complaint, he was described as the "scary guy" who coworkers said was linked with terrorism and bombmaking after a conversation about Zeiny being a practicing Muslim.

"After (the) plaintiff requested a private place at work to perform two of the five daily Muslim prayers, his coworkers started ridiculing and insulting him," the complaint reads. "The office atmosphere changed dramatically, and (the) plaintiff's coworkers became very hostile and suspicious."

A native of Egypt, Zeiny states that employees said he came from a "corrupt culture" and was "not a full American." He said that his work was sabotaged and he was monitored unfairly.

Zeiny claims he was fired from WSMS three days after he filed a complaint about his coworkers' activities. He said that a separate story of why he was terminated circulated - that he refused to translate an e-mail sent to the Department of Energy in Arabic and that he had unauthorized software on a computer.

He also claims that individuals from WSMS contacted his current employer and "made false statements concerning the reason" Zeiny was fired.

After he left, Zeiny also alleges that his computer was sent to "Counter Intelligence and to the FBI" because he was considered a possible terrorist suspect by coworkers because he was of Middle Eastern descent and followed Islam.

WSMS is part of the Washington Group of URS Corp. and has been the safety watchdog for them at SRS for the past six years.

A spokesman for URS said that they do not comment on personnel issues or legal matters.

Zeiny graduated with a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California Irvine in 1995. After that, he spent time in academia teaching and researching, and was a consulting engineer before beginning work in Aiken for Parsons in January 2005. He held that position for 13 months before moving to WSMS.

The lawsuit makes no specific monetary demands but attacks WSMS on four fronts, claiming that he was subject to a hostile work environment, was discriminated against and suffered defamation and that his employer sought to retaliate against him after he complained.

A civil complaint is only the opening salvo in the case and offers only one view of events.

Contact Mike Gellatly at mgellatly@aikenstandard.com.