Man charged with murder over New York slayings of imam

Baku. 16 August. REPORT.AZ/ Police charged a man late Monday night with murder in the brazen daytime shooting deaths of an imam and his friend as they left a New York City mosque over the weekend.

Report informs citing Gazeta.ru, Oscar Morel, 35, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

Charges against the Brooklyn man were upgraded after police said they recovered a revolver at his home and clothes similar to those being worn in a surveillance video that showed the gunman. Morel was taken into custody on Sunday after police said he hit a bicyclist 10 minutes after Saturday’s shooting in Queens. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on the charges. Morel can be seen on the surveillance video fleeing the area of the shooting in a black GMC Trailblazer just after Imam Maulana Alauddin Akonjee and Thara Uddin were shot. About 10 minutes later, a car matching that description struck a bicyclist about five kilometres away in Brooklyn.

Morel was arrested late Sunday night outside a Brooklyn apartment after intentionally ramming his car into an unmarked police cruiser trying to block him in. The arrest was announced just hours after about 1,000 people gathered under tents to praise Akonjee, 55, and Uddin, 64, in an Islamic funeral service where emotions ran high.

Authorities did not release a motive for the killings.