Man charged in slaying of NYC imam, friend; motive unclear

NEW YORK (AP) — A man suspected of gunning down an imam and his friend as they left a New York City mosque was arrested and charged with murder late Monday night, said police, who have not yet released a motive for the shooting deaths.

Police charged Oscar Morel, 35, with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the Saturday afternoon slayings of Imam Maulana Alauddin Akonjee and Thara Uddin near the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens.

Officers took Morel into custody late Sunday night outside a Brooklyn apartment as he approached a vehicle that police had linked to an unrelated hit-and-run and that matched the description of the shooting suspect's getaway vehicle.

"Detectives from the Fugitive Task Force Unit approached the car, and then he rammed the detectives' car several times in an effort to get away," said the New York Police Department's chief of detectives, Robert Boyce. "He was placed under arrest without any further incident and brought back to the precinct for more debriefing."

Boyce said Morel was seen on surveillance video fleeing the area of the shooting in a black GMC Trailblazer. About 10 minutes later, a car matching that description struck a bicyclist nearby in Brooklyn.