Hundreds of mourners have gathered in New York City for the outdoor funeral of a Muslim cleric and his associate who were gunned down over the weekend, as police charge a man with murder over the killings that shocked the neighbourhood’s Bangladeshi community.
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“We strongly believe this is the individual”, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives, Robert Boyce, said of Morel after the initial arrest was announced. NBC reported the man being questioned matched the description. He hasn’t been charged in the double slaying.
Authorities say surveillance footage showed a auto leaving the scene after the shots were fired. Detectives checked a police database and found that a vehicle with a matching description had been involved in a hit-and-run crash in Brooklyn, police said.
Around 10 p.m., a man got into the vehicle, and police attempted to put him under arrest, Boyce said.
The suspect, Oscar Morel of Brooklyn, was being questioned about the fatal shootings of Imam Maulama Akonjee and Thara Uddin on Saturday after they left a mosque in the Ozone Park section of Queens.
In this Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016, photo, people gather near a crime scene for a demonstration after the leader of a New York City mosque and an associate were fatally shot in a brazen daylight attack as they left afternoon praye.
Police, who hadn’t named the suspect and have not brought charges against him, found a revolver they believe is the murder weapon in the suspect’s home, sources said.
“We want justice”, Badrul Kahn, founder of the Al-Furqan mosque, shouted to the crowd in the service’s opening speech.
After the ceremony, part of the crowd marched to the spot a few blocks away where the shooting took place.
Investigators hadn’t established a motive for the shootings, said NYPD Deputy Inspector Hank Sautner during a news conference.
Speakers who came before de Blasio demanded that authorities classify the murders as a hate crime and one read an open letter calling the shootings “a terrorist act” motivated by hatred and fueled by the “constant rhetoric and xenophobic statements against minorities and Muslims made by the politicians and candidates”.
“On behalf of Jews around the world, I wish to extend my deepest sympathies and solidarity to the Muslim community and pray that this was an isolated incident that will never be repeated”, Lauder said.
Police said there was still no known connection between the man being questioned and the murder victims. Akonjee had booked a ticket to return to Bangladesh at the end of the month to visit his mother, who is ill, Miah said.
The suspect’s name was not released and Boyce stressed that there was still a long way to go in the investigation.
This, as family and friends prepare to say goodbye to the victims at their funeral today.
The shooting appeared to be the most violent attack against local Muslim leaders in recent years, said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the CAIR.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations offered a $10,000 reward for any information that could lead to the arrest or conviction fo the perpetrators.
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Police believe they have identified the suspect in the killing of a Queens imam and his associate who is now being held on unrelated charges of a hit-and-run that took place roughly three miles from the scene of the homicide, city officials announced at a press conference Monday evening.
