Suspect indicted in NYC imam’s killing

NEW YORK — A grand jury has returned a five-count indictment, including one for first-degree murder, against the 36-year-old man accused of the shootings of an imam and his assistant on a Queens street, prosecutors said on Monday.

Oscar Morel has also been charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in the Aug. 13 attack in the Ozone Park neighborhood, prosecutors said.

The authorities said Morel had approached the imam, Alauddin Akonjee, 55, and his assistant, Thara Miah, 64, from behind, then shot each man in the back of the head. But officials said Monday that investigators still had not determined the motivation for the attack.

“The defendant’s alleged actions strike at the very heart of our county’s Muslim community,” the Queens district attorney, Richard Brown, said in a statement on Monday. “Both victims were gentle men of peace, and their deaths are a devastating loss to their families and the community that they served.”

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