New Mexico State Police and federal agencies are investigating the murders of four Muslims to determine whether the murders, the latest of which occurred Friday night, are connected in what the state’s governor described as targeted killings.
“A young man from the Muslim community was killed,” Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina told reporters Saturday.
The name of the victim and the circumstances of the crime have not been revealed. In three previous cases, the victims were ambushed and shot without warning, police said.
Medina said there was a possibility that the young man’s murder was connected to the previous three murders.
New Mexico police said earlier that three other Muslims who have died in the state’s largest city in the past nine months appear to have been targeted because of their religion or ethnicity.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Logan Grisham tweeted late Saturday: “The killing of a Muslim resident of Albuquerque is outrageous and completely unacceptable.”
It also added that it has sent additional members of the state police to Albuquerque to help with the investigation.
Two attendees were shot to death at the same mosque in Albuquerque in late July and early August. Police said there was a “high probability” their deaths were linked to the killing of an Afghan migrant in November.
Muhammad Afzal Hussain, 27, a former Espanola city planning director who came to the United States from Pakistan, was shot to death Monday outside his Albuquerque apartment complex, police said.
Police said it followed the fatal shooting of Aftab Hussain, 41, of Albuquerque’s large Afghan community, on July 26 near the city’s International District.
Police said the two crimes are possibly connected to the Nov. 7 shooting of Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, in a parking lot near a supermarket and cafe.
Source: Lebanon Debate
