A younger unidentified man bows in the course of the Dhuhr afternoon prayer on the Islamic Heart of New Mexico on Aug. 7, 2022, after the fourth Muslim man was killed in Albuquerque.
Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP
A younger unidentified man bows in the course of the Dhuhr afternoon prayer on the Islamic Heart of New Mexico on Aug. 7, 2022, after the fourth Muslim man was killed in Albuquerque.
Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Within the six years since he resettled in the USA from Afghanistan, the first suspect within the slayings of 4 Muslim males in Albuquerque has been arrested a number of occasions for home violence and captured on digicam slashing the tires of a girl’s automobile, in keeping with police and courtroom data.
The prolonged sample of violence — which started not lengthy after Muhammad Syed arrived within the states — has shocked members of town’s small, close-knit Muslim group, a few of whom knew him from the native mosque and who initially had assumed the killer was an outsider with a bias towards the Islamic faith. Now, they’re coming to phrases with the concept they by no means actually understood the person.
“I believe primarily based on figuring out his historical past now — and we did not earlier than — he is clearly a disturbed particular person. He clearly has a violent tendency,” stated Ahmad Assed, president of the Islamic Heart of New Mexico.
Police say Syed, 51, was acquainted together with his victims and was doubtless motivated by “interpersonal conflicts.”
He was arrested Monday night time and stays in custody. Prosecutors say he’s a harmful man and plan to ask a decide subsequent week to maintain him locked up pending trial on homicide prices in reference to two of the taking pictures deaths. Syed can also be the first suspect within the different two homicides, however police say they won’t rush to cost him in these instances so long as he stays in jail and would not pose a risk to the group. The married father of six has denied involvement within the killings; his protection attorneys have declined to remark.
Few particulars have emerged publicly about Syed’s life earlier than he and his household got here to America in 2016, however a U.S. authorities doc obtained by The Related Press says he graduated from Rehman Baba Excessive Faculty in western Kabul in 1990. Between 2010 and 2012, he labored as a cook dinner for the Al Bashar Jala Development Firm.
In December 2012, Syed fled Afghanistan together with his spouse and kids, the report states. The household made its option to Pakistan, the place Syed sought work as a fridge technician. A local Pashto speaker who was additionally fluent in Dari, he was admitted to the USA in 2016 as a refugee.
The very subsequent 12 months, in keeping with courtroom data, a boyfriend of Syed’s daughter alleged that Syed, his spouse and one in every of Syed’s sons pulled him out of a automobile and punched and kicked him earlier than driving away. The boyfriend, who was discovered with a bloody nostril, scratches and bruises, instructed police he was attacked as a result of Syed, a Sunni Muslim, didn’t need his daughter in a relationship with a Shiite man.
In 2018, Syed was taken into custody after a struggle together with his spouse about her driving. Syed instructed police that his spouse had slapped him within the automobile, however she stated he pulled her by the hair, threw her to the bottom and made her stroll two hours to their vacation spot.
Months later, Syed allegedly beat his spouse and attacked one in every of his sons with a big slotted metallic spoon that left his hair blood-soaked, in keeping with courtroom paperwork. Syed’s spouse instructed police all the pieces was high-quality. However the son, who was the one who referred to as them, instructed officers that Syed routinely beat him and his mom.
Two of the instances had been dismissed after the spouse and boyfriend declined to press prices. The third was dismissed after Syed accomplished a pretrial intervention program. In 2020, Syed was arrested after he allegedly refused to drag over for police after operating a site visitors mild, however that case was additionally ultimately dismissed.
“If you happen to’re making an attempt to know how violence in a specific individual evolves, you simply must know that he did not get up final 12 months and turn into a serial killer,” stated former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole. “He had expertise with violence. And that is the problem of regulation enforcement … to establish what’s your expertise with violence and when did it begin?”
Syed instructed detectives that he’d served with the Afghan Nationwide Army Particular Operations Command, a small, elite group of Afghan troopers who fought the Taliban. He stated he likes the AK-47-style weapon police discovered at his home as a result of he’d used one in Afghanistan.
But the U.S. authorities profile the AP reviewed didn’t listing any navy expertise, and Syed turned 40 the 12 months the elite power was shaped in 2011 — doubtless too previous to be chosen for fight within the heaviest combating.
“That sounds a little bit fishy,” stated Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, who served two excursions in Afghanistan and is a senior fellow and navy knowledgeable on the Protection Priorities suppose tank. He stated whereas Syed might have been a soldier, “particular forces guys are normally 22, 25 years previous, perhaps 30, as a result of it’s so bodily demanding.”
The Syed household lives in a small duplex on town’s south aspect, a working-class a part of city the place most of the older properties and flats have safety bars affixed to their doorways and home windows. The realm has turn into a magnet for Afghan refugees and different immigrants seeking to make a brand new house in New Mexico’s largest metropolis.
The killings set off concern in Albuquerque’s Muslim group of about 4,500
The slayings of the 4 males — the primary in November and the opposite three occurring in fast succession over a interval of lower than two weeks in July and the primary week of August — set off ripples of terror in Albuquerque’s Muslim group of about 4,500. Residents had been afraid to exit of their properties — to the purpose the place metropolis officers supplied to ship meals — and a few thought of leaving city.
That was what Syed instructed investigators he was doing when he left in his Volkswagen Jetta on Sunday: heading out of state to discover a safer place for his frightened household.
Police say he was, in truth, skipping city after killing Naeem Hussain simply days earlier than.
Syed is the first suspect — however hasn’t been charged — within the demise of Hussain, a 25-year-old man from Pakistan who was fatally shot on Aug. 5 within the car parking zone of a refugee resettlement company in southeast Albuquerque; and the slaying of Muhammad Zahir Ahmadi, a 62-year-old Afghan immigrant who was fatally shot within the head final November behind the market he owned within the metropolis.
Ahmadi is the brother-in-law of the lady whose tires Syed slashed in 2020, whereas Syed and Hussain had recognized one another since 2016, police stated.
Syed has been charged with homicide within the deaths of Aftab Hussein and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain. Hussein, 41, was slain on the night time of July 26 after parking his automobile within the normal spot close to his house. Afzaal Hussain, a 27-year-old city planner who had labored on the marketing campaign of a New Mexico congresswoman, was gunned down on the night time of Aug. 1 whereas taking his night stroll.
Whereas Syed instructed police he acknowledged Hussein from events locally, it was unclear how he knew Afzaal Hussain.
Regardless of the violence he allegedly inflicted on his spouse and kids, Syed’s household is standing by him.
“My father is just not an individual who can kill someone,” his daughter lately instructed CNN, which didn’t disclose her identification to guard her security. “My father has all the time talked about peace. That is why we’re right here in the USA. We got here from Afghanistan, from combating, from taking pictures.”
