A serial killer who was reported to be killing Muslims turned out to be a Sunni Muslim immigrant who murdered three Shia Muslims because one married his daughter.
“A man arrested as the prime suspect in the serial killing of four Muslim men in Albuquerque is believed to be a Sunni Muslim himself, it has been reported.
Police named the man as 51-year-old Muhammad Syed, who lived in southeast Albuquerque.
He emigrated from Afghanistan 'in the last few years', police said on Tuesday, and was twice charged with domestic violence - but charges were dropped.
Court records obtained by The Daily Mail show Syed was arrested in May 2018 and charged with 'battery (household member)'. He pleaded not guilty, and prosecutors dropped the charges in August of that year.
Four months later, on December 23, 2018, Syed was charged with aggravated battery. The case was dismissed in April 2019.
It is believed that the suspected killer himself was a Sunni Muslim - and may have targeted his victims because he was angry over his daughter marrying a Shiite Muslim, according to The New York Times.
But the brother of one of the victims told The Daily Mail their family was Sunni, not Shiite, and he did not believe the hypothesis.
Albuquerque police on Tuesday said Syed was identified through his car, thanks to tip offs from the community.
'As detectives prepared to search Syed's home on Monday, Syed drove from the residence in the Volkswagen Jetta that detectives believe was used in at least one of the murders,' they said in a statement.
'Detectives detained Syed and searched his home and the vehicle’.
'They discovered evidence that further tied Syed to the murders’.
'Detectives discovered evidence that show the offender knew the victims to some extend and an interpersonal conflict may have led to the shootings’.
Syed has been charged with two of the murders that have rocked New Mexico's largest city: the July 26 killing of Aftab Hussein, 41, and the August 1 death of Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27. Both men moved to the U.S. from Pakistan.
Police say the gun used in those two shootings was found in Syed's home.
The other two victims were both Afghan-born: Mohammad Zahir Ahmadi, 62 and Naeem Hussain, 25.
Ahmad Assed, president of the city's largest mosque, said he had been told that a hatred of Shiite Muslims was being investigated as a possible motive.
The different denominations of Islam splintered off and have opposing beliefs on who should have succeeded the Prophet Muhammad. Both branches of the religion still follow the same holy book and worship the same god.
Yet Imtiaz Hussain, the brother of Afzaal Hussain, told The Daily Mail that he did not support the theory.
'My brother is a Sunni Muslim. Not a Shite Muslim,' said Imtiaz, who was a prosecutor in Pakistan before moving to Albuquerque.
'So I reject the theory that has been widely published that Muhammad Syed killed my brother and others because his daughter married a Shiite Muslim.
'My brother was a Muslim. He never carried any ID that said he was a Sunni or Shiite’.
Imtiaz Hussain also said he did not believe his brother knew Syed.
'He only went to the Islamic Center every three to four months,' he continued.
'I've never meet this person who murdered my brother nor do I think my brother knew him’.
'He's 51 years old, my brother is 30 years younger, they wouldn't have a lot in common with that age gap’.
Assed said the fear in his community was even more intense than after the September 11 attacks, when anti-Muslim sentiment was heightened.
'To experience something as atrocious and as horrific as what we've experienced the past few weeks is just mind-boggling', Assed said, adding people were afraid to go near windows.
'It feels like we're in a parallel universe’.
Hussein, 25, became the most recent victim when he was gunned down in the middle of the street on Friday night"
Naeem Hussein, 25, became the most recent victim when he was gunned down in the middle of the street on Friday night
Police would not be drawn on their findings so far.
'The motives are still being explored,' said Deputy Commander Kyle Hartsock.
Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina announced on Twitter Tuesday: 'We 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.'
Hartsock said: 'Right now we are only charging one person. If the evidence leads us to someone else, we're going to follow the evidence.'
He said the ballistic evidence from the murders had not yet been returned to them.
Hartsock said they were tipped off by someone in the community, through the Ambassador's Program which works on community relations”. -Alan Butterfield, Daily Mail
A murder spree caused by a man’s daughter marrying outside of the Sunni branch of the Muslim faith is one of the many unwanted results of cultural diversity.
“Diversity, never a good idea, is in fact the cause of most of the world’s conflicts: Shia and Sunni, Jew and Arab, Hutu and Tutsi, Tamil and Sinhalese, Hindu and Muslim and, in America, black, white, and brown. Diversity is the cause of the dissolution of American society.
Up until the post 1960s, America was a homogeneous enough society being overwhelmingly white, European, Anglophone, and Christian. This provided sufficient commonality that people all regarded themselves as Americans. At the same time, there were many geographically separated subcultures which had little in common and didn’t like each other, or wouldn’t have if they had come into contact”. -Fred Reed, Unz Review
Egalitarians and libertarians both preached the lies of open borders and immigration and promoted tolerance and diversity at the expense of civility.
It’s rather telling how the same publication wrote about a white father cutting off his daughter in response to her decision to attend prom with a black man.
“Anyone who doubts that racism is still alive and well in America need only to look at the shocking text exchange between one white Arkansas father and his teenage daughter regarding her prom date.
Anna Hayes, a high school senior from Lake Village, Arkansas attended prom last week with a male friend, Phillip Freeman — who happens to be black.
When her father — whom she does not live with — saw the photos, he was livid, and sent her a long tirade of racist, sexist text messages telling Anna that he was disowning her and calling both her and her date heartbreakingly offensive names”. -Carly Stern, Daily Mail
According to Missus Stern, freedom of association is not a fundamental human right when it precipitates Caucasian proclivity.
If only this father had the quick-wittedness to declare his newfound Muslim or Jewish faith, he could have buried the news of his arrest and would have avoided making national headlines, much less international news.