Imam Maulama Akonjee, left, and his assistant Thara Uddin, right, were fatally shot in Ozone Park Saturday, police said.
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Oscar Morel, 35, of East New York was charged with both men’s murders and criminal possession of a weapon, the NYPD said.
A sketch of a suspect in the shooting of Imam Akonjee and Uddin hangs on a street sign across from Al-Furqan Jame Mosque, where the two victims had been worshipping on Saturday afternoon before the shooting, in NY.
According to Tiffany Phillips, the spokeswoman for the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the motive for the shooting is yet to be determined and that it is still unclear if the two Muslim men were victims of religion-based violence.
Morel was arrested late Sunday night outside a Brooklyn apartment after intentionally ramming his vehicle into an unmarked police cruiser trying to block him in, Boyce said. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on the charges.
The men were attacked a couple of blocks from the Al-Furqan Jame Mosque, from where they had just left afternoon prayers.
“I have never felt this kind of tension”, said Nizam Uddin, 57, a taxi driver who said he knew both the cleric and his associate.
Earlier, during the funeral service for Akonjee, 55, and Uddin, 64, during which some mourners said they believe the two were shot as they left the mosque due to their religion, de Blasio offered condolences on behalf of all New Yorkers.
The daylight slaying of a mosque leader and his associate set off fear and anguish Sunday among Bangladeshi Muslims in a New York City neighborhood, with some saying the killings appear to be an anti-Muslim hate crime. But. Now his wife and two of his children will fly back with his body to Bangladesh for a burial Tuesday morning, said Sayed Ahmed, a family friend.
Outside the 107th precinct, Abbas Patel, 63, a muslim resident of Fresh Meadows, Queens, who was out for his nightly stroll, said he was relieved at news of the arrest. “He was there just prior to that, we have him on video about eight minutes prior to the homicide”.
Police have yet to establish a motive behind Saturday’s killings and have said there was no evidence the men were targeted due to their faith but nothing was being ruled out.
“We want justice”, Badrul Kahn, founder of the Al-Furqan mosque and its chief adviser, shouted to the crowd in the service’s opening speech. Hundreds gathered near the mosque to hold a mass prayer service for the victims and to demand justice for the murders. “And we will get justice for this community”, said Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Akonjee had been carrying more than US$1,000, but the attacker did not take the money, police said. He did not answer reporters’ questions about the slayings, including whether the men were shot because they were Muslim, before ducking into the sedan.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations had offered a $10,000 reward for any information that could lead to an arrest or conviction.
