Police said Tuesday that they were investigating whether a string of murders that have shaken Albuquerque was motivated by a Sunni Muslim father’s anger over his daughter marrying a Shiite Muslim.
Muhammad Syed, 51, has been charged with the murders of two Muslim men in New Mexico’s largest city, and faces possible charges for the murders of two other Muslim men killed in the last nine months.
Authorities said in a press release that “the offender knew the victims to some extent, and an interpersonal conflict may have led to the shootings.”
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Ahmad Assed, president of the city’s largest mosque, told The New York Times that authorities informed him the shooter is a Sunni Muslim who may have targeted the victims because he was angry over his daughter marrying a Shiite Muslim.
At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Albuquerque’s deputy chief, Kyle Hartsock, said police are still investigating the motive behind the slayings, but acknowledged the theory that Syed targeted victims because he was angry over his daughter’s marriage. “We’re not sure if that’s the only motivation,” Hartsock said, adding that they’re “still investigating it.”
The men killed have been identified as Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, Aftab Hussein, 41, and Naeem Hussain, 25.
Syed faces murder charges for the deaths of Aftab Hussein and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, police said Tuesday, and remains the prime suspect in the other two homicides. A gun traced back to two of the homicide scenes was found during a search of Syed’s home, authorities said.
“This has been a tough week for our community,” APD Chief Harold Medina said in a statement announcing the charges. “But we all pitched in to solve these crimes and protect a community that felt like it was under attack.”
Syed is the only suspect being investigated as of Tuesday, Hartsock said. Authorities are not labeling him a “serial killer” and said that, at this point, they still do not believe the murders were a hate crime.
Syed is a native of Afghanistan who has lived in New Mexico the “last several years,” Hartsock said. He’s been arrested on domestic violence charges three times in recent years, but all the charges were eventually dropped.
Since police announced they believed the slayings might be connected, Albuquerque’s Muslim community has been in a state of “panic, hopelessness, and fear,” Assed told The Daily Beast on Monday.
Assed said his community was scared to be near windows or go outdoors, with some deciding to flee New Mexico entirely. The level of fear he felt was unprecedented, he said, not even matched by a significant uptick in anti-Muslim crime after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
“To experience something as atrocious and as horrific as what we've experienced the past few weeks is just mind-boggling,” Assed said. “It feels like we’re in a parallel universe.”
The first of the four homicides occurred in November, authorities said, when Ahmadi was gunned down outside a market and cafe he operated with his brother.
A second killing came on July 26, when Aftab Hussein was gunned down outside of his apartment.
Days later, Afzaal was also shot dead outside of his apartment just blocks from the University of New Mexico, where he attended graduate school. His older brother, Imtiaz, said he’d stepped outside to make a phone call before he was ambushed on Aug. 1.
The final of the four victims, Naeem Hussain, was killed on Aug. 5 just hours after he attended a funeral service for Afzaal Hussain and Aftab Hussein.
As police connected the four murders to a single shooter, authorities released a photo of a silver sedan they believed was driven by the suspect. On Tuesday, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina posted to Twitter just before 1 p.m. local time that the car had been found.
“We tracked down the vehicle believed to be involved in a recent murder of a Muslim man in Albuquerque,” Medina wrote. “The driver was detained and he is our primary suspect for the murders.”
Sherry Shafiq, a friend of Afzaal Hussain, told The Daily Beast he was relieved that the alleged killer was caught. Over the past few days, he said, his community was living in fear while a suspect was on the loose. Some Muslim residents stayed home or kept hyper-vigilant of their surroundings.
“It’s heartbreaking news,” Shafiq said. “It’s one of the community members. It was a possibility that had crossed our minds, but never in my wildest dreams would I imagine someone in the community would do such a heinous crime.”
Before the arrest, Shafiq wondered if someone with knowledge of the Muslim community might have been involved in the crime, since the latest victim, Naeem Hussain, was killed hours after the funeral service.
“I’m so relieved, but this relief would be complete once we know all the facts to be honest,” Shafiq told The Daily Beast, adding that he feared the threat of further violence might not be completely extinguished. He still worries a second person might be involved, though police said Tuesday that they have no other suspects.
Hartsock said Albuquerque police are working “across oceans” to gather information about Syed and to coordinate the transfer of victims’ bodies.
