Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico nabbed the “primary suspect” in the killings of four local Muslim men on Tuesday — and now believe the victims may have been hunted down by a Sunni for being Shia.
Authorities charged Muhammad Syed, 51, with two of the four homicides after connecting those murders through tracing bullet casings, according to a press release.
Ahmad Assed, president of the Islamic Center of New Mexico, told the New York Times that authorities briefed him on the killings and said that Syed is a Sunni Muslim who was upset that his daughter married someone who is part of the Shia sect. The Post has not confirmed this report.
Albuquerque’s police chief Harold Medina tweeted earlier Tuesday that his department “tracked down the vehicle believed to be involved in a recent murder of a Muslim man in Albuquerque.”
“The driver was detained and he is our primary suspect for the murders,” he said.
The announcement came after New Mexico authorities revealed they were investigating the possibility that a serial killer has been hunting Muslim people in the state’s largest city.
On Sunday, Albuquerque police released an image of a dark gray or silver Volkswagen sedan they believed to be connected to the killer.
Albuquerque police said they detained the “primary suspect” in the killings of four Muslim men in New Mexico. Chancey Bush/The Albuquerque Journal via APIn their press release Tuesday, they connected Syed to the Volkswagen, saying cops saw him driving the car. Authorities are still working on bringing charges against a suspect in the other two killings.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Saturday that she had deployed additional state police to help find the killer.
“The targeted killings of Muslim residents of Albuquerque is deeply angering and wholly intolerable,” she wrote on Twitter.
People spread dirt over Aftab Hussein’s grave at Fairview Memorial Park in Albuquerque, N.M., on Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. Chancey Bush/The Albuquerque Journal via AP
Police released an image of a dark gray or silver Volkswagen sedan they believed to be connected to the killer. Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal via AP“We will not stop in our pursuit of justice for the victims and their families and are bringing every resource to bear to apprehend the killer or killers — and we WILL find them,” the Democrat said in a statement.
Syed is charged in the two most recent of the four murders, those of: Naeem Hussain, a Pakistani man who was killed Friday, and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain last Monday.
The murders of Aftab Hussein on July 26 and Mohammad Ahmadi in November 2021 remain under investigation.
All four victims were shot, and all were practicing Muslims, according to authorities.
The shootings have rattled New Mexico’s small Muslim community, which comprises less than one percent of the state of two million people.
