Last Saturday afternoon, Imam Alauddin Akonjee and his aide, Thara Miah, had just finished worship at Al-Furqan Jame Mosque in Queens when they were shot in the back of the head and killed.
Sunday evening, suspected killer Oscar Morel, 35, was taken into custody, and Monday he was charged with one count of first degree murder and two counts of second degree murder.
The shooting appeared to be an execution because the victims were not robbed, and one was still in possession of a large sum of money. It is unclear what may have motivated the shootings. The gun allegedly used in the shooting was later found in Morel’s home concealed behind a fresh wall of plaster.
When the incident was first reported, there was much speculation that it may have been a hate crime, someone with a grudge against Muslims and possibly urged on by the inflammatory rhetoric by political candidates, including Donald Trump’s Islamophobia.
But now it is being reported as the result of a feud between Muslims and members of the Hispanic community. This incident was possibly retaliation from a previous encounter.
Morel was identified because his car, which was later involved in a hit-and-run incident, was recorded on surveillance video leaving the scene of the shooting. The victim of the hit-and-run, a bicyclist, wrote down Morel’s license plate number and turned it over to the police. Later, the suspect was arrested after ramming the unmarked police car of officers who had him under surveillance.
A video of the shooting shows the assailant walking up behind Akonjee, 55, and Miah, 64, and gunning them down.
“This guy looks like he has shot a gun before,” a police source told the press, commenting on the shooter’s accuracy and prowess. “You don’t walk up behind someone, even from 5 feet, and just get two head shots. How many times you see cops fire 16 times and they hit the guy only twice?”
Congressman Gregory Meeks, who represents Ozone Park where the shooting occurred, cautioned against any rush to judgment. “This is an ongoing investigation,” he said Sunday evening on the WLIB. “While we are incensed by Donald Trump’s hurtful rhetoric against Muslims, we have no evidence that it might have influenced the shooter.”
Other members of the community offered similar reservations about the incident, particularly Muslims who fear further attacks.
“We want justice,” said Naim Akonjee, son of one of the victims. “Why did they kill my father?”
Some residents in the vicinity, many of them Bangladeshis like the two victims, voiced complaints that Mayor de Blasio did not act promptly enough, though he did speak at the funeral services on Monday and hold a press conference afterwards.
“It’s a very rare thing to see a cleric killed, and the Muslim community has already been on edge,” de Blasio said. “I assured the members of the community the N.Y.P.D. would be out in force.”
Akonjee came to the U.S. in 2011 and moved his family here a year later in order to provide a better education for his children. His wife and two of his children will fly back with his body for burial in Bangladesh.