Suspect in 4 Muslim killings left a trail of violence, N.M. police say
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — In the six years since he resettled in the United States from Afghanistan, the primary suspect in the slayings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque has been arrested several times for domestic violence and captured on camera slashing the tires of a woman’s car, according to police and court records.
The lengthy pattern of violence — which began not long after Muhammad Syed arrived in the states — has shocked members of the city’s small, close-knit Muslim community, some of whom knew him from the local mosque and who initially had assumed the killer was an outsider with a bias against the Islamic religion. Now, they are coming to terms with the idea that they never really understood the man.
“I think based on knowing his history now — and we didn’t before — he’s obviously a disturbed individual. He obviously has a violent tendency,” said Ahmad Assed, president of the Islamic Center of New Mexico.
Police say Syed, 51, was acquainted with his victims and was likely motivated by “interpersonal conflicts.”
He was arrested Monday night and remains in custody. Prosecutors say he is a dangerous man and plan to ask a judge next week to keep him locked up pending trial on murder charges in connection with two of the shooting deaths. Syed is also the primary suspect in the other two homicides, but police say they will not rush to charge him in those cases as long as he remains in jail and doesn’t pose a threat to the community.
The married father of six has denied involvement in the killings; his defense attorneys have declined to comment.
Few details have emerged publicly about Syed’s life before he and his family came to America in 2016.
The very next year, according to court records, a boyfriend of Syed’s daughter alleged that Syed, his wife and one of Syed’s sons pulled him out of a car and punched and kicked him before driving away. The boyfriend, who was found with a bloody nose, scratches and bruises, told police he was attacked because Syed, a Sunni Muslim, did not want his daughter in a relationship with a Shiite man.
In 2018, Syed was taken into custody after a fight with his wife about her driving. Syed told police that his wife had slapped him in the car, but she said he pulled her by the hair, threw her to the ground and made her walk two hours to their destination.
Months later, Syed allegedly beat his wife and attacked one of his sons with a large slotted metal spoon that left his hair bloodsoaked, according to court documents. Syed’s wife told police everything was fine. But the son, who was the one who called them, told officers that Syed routinely beat him and his mother.
Two of the cases were dismissed after the wife and boyfriend declined to press charges. The third was dismissed after Syed completed a pretrial intervention program.
The slayings of the four men — the first in November and the other three occurring in rapid succession over a period of less than two weeks in July and the first week of August — set off ripples of terror in Albuquerque’s Muslim community of about 4,500. Residents were afraid to go out of their homes — to the point where city officials offered to deliver meals — and some considered leaving town.
Syed is the primary suspect — but hasn’t been charged — in the death of Naeem Hussain, a 25year-old man from Pakistan who was fatally shot on Aug. 5; and the slaying of Muhammad Zahir Ahmadi, a 62-year-old Afghan immigrant who was fatally shot in the head last November behind the market he owned in the city.
Ahmadi is the brother-in-law of the woman whose tires Syed slashed in 2020, while Syed and Hussain had known each other since 2016, police said.
Syed has been charged with murder in the deaths of Aftab Hussein and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain. Hussein, 41, was slain on the night of July 26. Afzaal Hussain, a 27-year-old urban planner, was gunned down on Aug. 1 while taking his evening walk.