Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - When asked about the arrest of an Afghani Muslim immigrant in connection with the murders of four Muslim ...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - When asked about the arrest of an Afghani Muslim immigrant in connection with the murders of four Muslim men, Muslims in New Mexico said they were shocked and ashamed.
On Tuesday, police reported that they had taken custody of Muhammad Syed, 51. Police said he may have been motivated by personal animosities, possibly with intra-Muslim sectarian overtones, although the motive for the killings is still unknown.
When questioned by police, Syed reportedly said he had nothing to do with any of the four murders, according to the New York Times.
"We cannot believe what we are hearing. Speechless. I feel a little ashamed to say that he is one of our own, "said Mula Akbar, an Afghan-American entrepreneur who claimed to have assisted Syed in relocating to the city.
Akbar speculated that the cause might have been due to the man's hatred of Shi'ites.
Syed was from the Sunni branch of Islam and worshipped together at Albuquerque's Islamic Center of New Mexico (ICNM) mosque with most of the victims, three of whom were from the Shi'ite branch of Islam. The four victims were all of Pakistani or Afghan ancestry. Three were killed in the past two weeks, and one was killed in November.
Syed, who made his first court appearance on Wednesday, was formally accused of killing Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, on August 1 and Aftab Hussein, 41, on July 26.
Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, was shot dead on November 7, 2021, outside the grocery store he ran with his brother in southeast Albuquerque, and Naeem Hussain, 25, a truck driver died on Friday, according to a statement from the police on Tuesday.
If Syed had hired a lawyer was not immediately apparent.
The police chose not to respond to rumours. One of Syed's daughters had run off with a Shi'ite guy, which infuriated him.
Aftab Hussein and Naeem Hussain, two of the men who were killed, were friends with the daughter's husband, according to CNN. The lady, who CNN withheld her name out of fear for her safety, claimed that when she got married in 2018, her father was not pleased, but that he had started to accept her more recently.
"My father is not a murderous individual. Concerning peace, my father has always spoken. We are in the United States for that reason. We left Afghanistan, where we fought and shot, "She spoke to CNN.
Samia Assed, a Palestinian-American, said the 4,000 or so Muslims in Albuquerque needed to do more to stop the violence they brought with them from places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After hosting an ecumenical tribute at the ICNM, Albuquerque's oldest and largest mosque, the human rights activist stated, "This brought me back to 9/11 when I just wanted to hide under a rock."
It's like going back 100 years for this to happen, she remarked.
According to worshippers surveyed by Reuters, the mosque is nonsectarian, mostly serves Sunnis from more than 30 countries, and has never before seen violence of this nature.
According to Akbar, a former U.S. diplomat who worked on Afghan issues and assisted in founding the Afghan Society of New Mexico, Syed is a truck driver with six children, is of Pashtun ethnicity, and arrived in the United States as a refugee from Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province about six years ago.
Over the past three or four years, Syed amassed a list of petty crimes, including one involving domestic abuse, according to the police.
The head of the mosque, lawyer Ahmad Assed, said that footage from February 2020 showed him slashing the tyres of a car at the ICNM that was allegedly owned by the family of the first identified victim, Ahmadi.
We're experiencing a weird time as we try to make sense of the senseless murders we've witnessed, he said.
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