Man arrested in hit-and-run likely shot imam, friend

Sandals mark the crime scene, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016, not far from the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid Mosque in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens, New York, where the leader of a New York City mosque has been fatally shot and an associate has been wounded in a brazen daylight attack.

(AP Photo/Craig Ruttle). A young woman looks over the area from the steps of an elevated train station Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016, in the Queens borough of New York, near a crime scene after the leader of a New York City mosque and an associate were fatal.

The chief suspect wanted for the double murder of a NY imam and his friend that sent shock waves through Muslim communities is in custody and charged with another crime, police said Monday. Police said they also recovered a revolver in the suspect’s home and clothes similar to that being worn in a video that shows the gunman. It was not immediately clear if Morel had an attorney who could comment on the charges.

A Brooklyn man has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting deaths of a NY imam and his assistant, police said late Monday.

He hasn’t been charged in the shootings.

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.

The man accused of fatally shooting an imam and his friend as they left a New York City mosque is being held without bail.

He was described as a 36-year-old Hispanic man from the borough of Brooklyn, but they declined to give his name. He hasn’t been charged in the double slaying. About 10 minutes later, a auto matching that description struck a bicyclist nearby in Brooklyn.

Detectives arrested the man Sunday night in the hit-and-run accident.

While asking for security measures to protect mosques, speakers at the traditional Islamic funeral service believed the murders were hate crimes against the Islamic faith, and that the victims were targeted.

More than 1,000 people, including New York City’s mayor Bill de Blasio, gathered on Monday for a prayer service for Imam Maulama Alauddin Akonjee, 55, and Thara Uddin, 64.

“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.

Police blocked off several roads around the Brooklyn parking lot where the funeral was held, and scores of officers worked to secure the event, setting up barricades to keep spectators from swarming the black hearses and the speakers’ tent. “You will see today and in the days thereafter, extra NYPD presence protecting our mosques and protecting the people of our Muslim communities”, de Blasio continued.

Emotions ran high. Some people shouted for justice as a man spoke at the podium.

A prosecutor says the motive for a shooting that claimed the lives of a New York City imam and his friend is still being investigated.

Boyce said police believed that the vehicle was the same one identified in surveillance-camera footage that “fled the scene” of the killing.

Investigators said Monday that the vehicle matched the description of one involved in an unsolved hit-and-run crash in Brooklyn.

The suspect was arrested late Sunday night. But the development, which New York Police Commissioner William Bratton called “a strong lead”, is likely to bring some solace to the tense Bangladeshi immigrant community in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens, two days after the religious leaders were shot at point-blank range after leaving their mosque.

Another son, Foyez Uddin, who isn’t related to the other victim, told The Associated Press in Bangladesh that his father and mother had booked flights for August 31 to visit Akonjee’s mother. The son says the family is discussing funeral plans.

The leader of a New York City mosque and an associate have been fatally shot in a brazen daylight attack.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations will announce on Monday a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooter.