Refugee Accused of Albuquerque Muslim Killings Convicted of Murder
An Afghan refugee accused of carrying out three deadly ambush-style shootings of Muslim men in Albuquerque two years ago was convicted of first-degree murder on Monday for one of the killings.
Muhammad Syed now faces life in prison for the slaying of 41-year-old Aftab Hussein. Syed is set to face further trials in the other killings, all of which took place over the course of a few weeks in July and August 2022, striking fear in the New Mexico city’s Islamic community of a possible serial killer targeting Muslims.
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Hussein was gunned down outside his apartment on July 26, 2022. During the weeklong trial, prosecutors alleged that Syed used a recently purchased AK-47 rifle to fire at Hussein while hiding in some bushes about 25 feet from the victim, according to the Albuquerque Journal. They added that Hussein’s body had been “destroyed” by bullets that created 11 entrance wounds and 10 exit wounds.
Prosecutors also presented cellphone records showing that Syed had been in the area at the time the shooting took place and said ballistics analysis confirmed that Syed’s rifle—which was found under his bed following his arrest on Aug. 8, 2022—was the murder weapon.
Syed’s defense attorneys claimed that no evidence proved it was Syed who had fired the gun and said other people who lived in his house could have accessed the weapon and his phone. Syed declined to testify, and his defense called no witnesses. They said they plan to appeal the conviction after the completion of Syed’s other trials.
Deputy District Attorney David Waymire said after Monday’s verdict that his team was pleased the jury was able to see that Hussein’s death was “clearly a deliberate killing.” Despite the conviction, he said prosecutors hadn’t been able to “uncover anything that we would indicate would be a motive that would explain this.” “As best we can tell, this could be a case of a serial killer where there’s a motive known only to them and not something that we can really understand,” Waymire said, according to NBC News.
“You are never going to hear a motive because one has never been disclosed,” Syed’s defense attorney Thomas Clark said following the verdict, according to the Journal.
Syed, who settled in the U.S. along with his family several years before the attacks, is also accused of killing 27-year-old Muhammad Afzaal Hussain in a drive-by shooting on Aug. 1, 2022, and Naeem Hussain, 25, who was shot dead as he sat in his car in a parking lot. The latter had attended funerals for two of the other murder victims just hours before he was killed himself.
Police have previously considered Syed the “prime suspect” in a fourth murder that took place in November 2021, but he has not been charged in the case.
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