Suspect Arrested and Charged with Murder of Española Planning Director

Suspect Arrested and Charged with Murder of Española Planning Director

By Nicholas Gilmore

rgscityreporter@gmail.com

SUN Staff Writer

After weeks of fear and confusion in Albuquerque’s Muslim community, police arrested Muhammad Atif Syed, 51, on Monday night and charged him with the murders of Española’s planning and land use director, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, and another man, Aftab Hussein, 41.

Syed, a Muslim man from Afghanistan, was detained in Santa Rosa, more than 100 miles from the apartment on the southeast side of Albuquerque where police first began tracking him. He was driving a Volkswagen Jetta, which was the suspected vehicle during at least one of the murders. A description of a similar car had been distributed by police last weekend as officials asked for help from the public in finding leads in the case. A criminal complaint against Syed states he told police he was driving to Houston, Texas “to find a new place for his family to live because the situation in Albuquerque was bad.” 

His two sons, according to police, have also been questioned but released.

A motive for the murders has not been established but reports indicated tension about Syed’s daughter and her marriage to a practicing Shia Muslim. Syed is reportedly a Sunni Muslim.

Police received multiple tips on Aug. 8 that “Muhammad (Syed) was the shooter in the homicides of the Muslim men in Albuquerque,” the complaint states.

After conducting a search on Syed’s apartment, investigators found two rifles and a rifle scope. Police also found a firearm and bullet casings in the car Syed was driving. Using the FBI’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, investigators matched casings from Syed’s rifle to those recovered from the crime scenes of the July 26 and Aug. 1 shootings, according to police.

“Our homicide unit as well as the crime scene team started to notice some similarities between these two cases, and, with the help of the FBI’s NIBIN program, we were able to relate the casings found in both these scenes that were likely fired from the same firearm,” Deputy Commander Kyle Hartsock said. 

Muhammad Afzaal Hussain was shot and killed on the night of Aug. 1 less than one block from his Albuquerque home and only six days after Aftab Hussein was shot and killed a few miles away. Two other Muslim men have been shot and killed in Albuquerque since November. Syed has not been charged with those murders but is considered by police as the “primary suspect” in all four killings. 

Hussain was killed the night before his one-year anniversary with the city of Española. He was living on the southeast side of Albuquerque but was planning to move to Española at the end of that week.

In the days following Hussain’s shooting — and with the killing of the fourth Muslim man in Albuquerque on the night of Hussain’s Aug. 5 funeral — the case drew national attention from President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.

“Our homicide detectives and our investigators currently believe there is a strong possibility that the same individual committed all three (at the time there was no fourth victim) of these crimes,” Hartsock said on Aug. 4. “While we won’t go into why we think that there’s one strong commonality in all of our victims, their race and religion.”

Hartsock had asked for the public’s help in identifying such a suspect, saying these types of investigations typically depend upon such a tip “that helps turn the tide and identifies our suspect.”

“My guess is someone out there either directly knows who did this and can provide that information to police or they noticed some behavior changes in someone around them that they think could possibly do this,” Hartsock said. “Two of these murders happened in the past week. Whoever is doing them is changing up their lifestyle, their behavior, something is off more than usual, and we want you to let us know why you think that is.” 

The killings were widely theorized to have been a string of hate-related crimes, but the murders now appear to have roots in unrest within the Muslim community. There are an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Muslims in Albuquerque. Reports indicate the city has become a haven in recent years for Afghan refugees fleeing their country after the United States withdrew its military. 

On Tuesday, police said Syed may have targeted at least two of the victims due to resentment over his daughter marrying a man from the other major branch of Islam, a Shiite Muslim. While the two main sects of Islam, Sunnis and Shiites, share a belief in the same five pillars of Islam, longstanding disagreements on political power have led to tension and bloodshed over the years.

“Detectives discovered evidence that shows the offender knew the victims to some extent, and an interpersonal conflict may have led to the shootings,” a news release from the police department stated.

The shooting of Española’s city employee, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, occurred less than one week after Aftab Hussein, 41, was killed on Rhode Island St. NE, less than four miles away. Last November, Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, was killed outside the Ariana Halal Market & Cafe. Just before midnight on Aug. 5, officers found Naeem Hussain, a 25-year-old Muslim man, shot and killed in the same area. Naeem Hussain had reportedly attended the funeral service for Aftab Hussein and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain earlier that day. 

Although Syed was charged with the murders of Muhammad Afzaal Hussain and Aftab Hussein, police are “continuing to investigate Syed’s involvement in the other two crimes,” Hartsock said.

In the last five years, Syed has been arrested in Albuquerque three times on battery charges, all of which were dismissed, according to court documents.

He was accused in 2017, along with his wife and son, of participating in “punching and kicking” his daughter’s boyfriend. 

Twice in 2018, Syed was accused of violence against his wife. She told police in May of that year that Syed had grabbed her by her hair and pushed her to the floor in the lobby of the state Human Services Department. Seven months later, Syed’s son showed police a bloody wound on the back of his head allegedly caused by his father beating him with a large metal spoon. He said Syed had “routinely beat him and his mother in the past.” 

When Medina announced the arrest of Syed on Tuesday, he gave a message to Albuquerque’s Muslim community: “You put faith in us. You trusted us. You passed information on to us that was crucial, and that led to us being able to make an arrest in this case.” 

“I am proud of the law enforcement partners and all offices represented today for their steadfast commitment to our community and to bringing justice swiftly,” Islamic Center of New Mexico president Ahmad Assed said. “We’re hopeful that we have no further losses in our community, and we’re also hopeful that violence at large is eliminated, and we pray for every family, not just Muslim families for the losses they’ve endured in the era of violence, if you will.”

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Muhammad Afzaal Hussain was 25 years old. Hussain was 27 years old.