Brooklyn man charged with murder for execution-style shootings of Queens imam and friend
Cops searching the home of a man suspected of gunning down a Queens imam and his friend, found a revolver and clothes Monday that matched what the shooter wore in a video of the attack, sources said.
The discovery led to second-degree murder charges against 35-year-old Oscar Morel, in a shooting carried out execution-style Saturday, in the heat of a summer afternoon, police said.
Morel, who lives in a basement apartment in East New York, Brooklyn, was spotted on surveillance footage in Ozone Park around the time of the brazen shooting, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.
Police said witnesses saw his black Chevy TrailBlazer flee the scene of the shooting.
“We believe, because of the evidence we’ve acquired thus far, that we strongly believe this is the individual,” Boyce said.
His brother Alvin Morel was stunned to learn the news.
“This is nothing like him. My brother is a decent person,” he insisted. “I don’t know what happened. I’ve been trying to reach him all day,” he said, adding their mother was sick with cancer.
The family had no gripes with Muslims, he said.
“The only time we felt, everybody in New York felt, a hatred, was during 9/11. Other than that, we never felt a hatred with nobody.”
In a posting on his Facebook page, Alvin Morel made a heartfelt plea for his family Monday night.
“I can’t believe what has happened …. GOD help my brother mother father and myself,” he said.
