A Guyanese man living in Queens yesterday confessed to a series of firebombings in New York on New Year’s Day, including hurling a Molotov cocktail at an Islamic cultural centre in part because he wasn’t allowed to use its bathrooms, New York police said.
The New York Daily News said the man, identified by sources as Raylazir Legend, 40, told detectives that each of the targets in Queens and Elmont, L.I., including a mosque, stemmed from ongoing disputes. The house of a Guyanese family was one of the buildings attacked.
“The suspect made statements incriminating himself in each of the five firebombings, citing a personal grievance or dispute in each instance,” Paul Browne, a spokesman for the New York City Police Department was quoted as saying.
Legend, described as an unemployed tow truck driver with several prior arrests for crack possession and larceny, was not charged yesterday, but a law enforcement official was quoted as saying that he is facing arson and hate-crime charges because of “broad anti-Muslim statements” he made during his confession.
He was arrested after detectives saw him get into a stolen car linked to the first attack, a Hillside Avenue bodega, where he had been caught by workers last week trying to steal a carton of milk and a Starbucks Frappuccino.
“When they were pushing him out of the store, he said words to the effect of, ‘We’re going to get even; we’re going to get back at you,’” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters at a news conference yesterday.
The Daily News said Legend filled a Starbucks bottle with an accelerant before lighting it and tossing it at the bodega about 8 pm on Sunday, according to sources. He then went over to 107th Avenue to set fire to a crack dealer’s house, but he torched the wrong address, sources added. At 8:44 p.m., Legend hurled two of his homemade firebombs at the Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Centre on the Van Wyck Expressway, police reported.
During his confession, an official said that Legend explained that he targeted the mosque because they refused to let him use the bathroom in the past. He also said that he had intended to throw three more Molotov cocktails at the mosque before he drove away but didn’t carry out his plan.
Legend then took a trip to Elmont, L.I., where he threw a bottle-bomb at what he thought was an in-law’s house but turned out to be the residence of a Guyanese family.
His final attack occurred at 10:14 p.m., when he tossed a Molotov cocktail at the 170th St. home of Ramesh Maharaj, 62, that doubles as a Hindu place of worship.
The New York Times (NYT) reported that the Elmont home was occupied by Bejai Rai and his wife, who were getting ready for bed in their home on Glafil Street around 9:40 pm when they heard a loud crash. Rai, a Hindu from Guyana, said it appeared that the bottle had bounced off the house and crashed on the walkway without setting anything alight.
The Queens attacks, according to the NYT, occurred in one of the more diverse stretches of the city’s most cosmopolitan borough. It said that the two main thoroughfares are dotted with halal shops, Latino restaurants, Hindu temples and Christian churches.
It said that once predominantly black, the neighbourhood has had influxes of immigrants from many parts of the world, including Guyana, the rest of the West Indies, Central America, South Asia, and Arabic-speaking lands.
“Everyone gets along, no problems,” said Salem Ahmed, 38, the owner of the bodega, on Hillside Avenue and 180th Street, that was attacked.
Ahmed said a man ran into the store and threw a flaming bottle over the deli counter at the small 24-hour grocery store, which he opened soon after arriving from Yemen 20 years ago. The bottle fell to the floor without breaking and caused a small fire which was quickly put out.
The NYT said that in the attack on the Al-Khoei Islamic Centre, along the Van Wyck Expressway, two lit bottles were lobbed at the entrance, causing a small blaze shortly before 9 p.m.
Imam Maan Al-Sahlani, an Iraqi immigrant, told the NYT that a service had just ended when the attack took place. There was little damage, he said, but the attack caused concern among some members that Muslims might have been targeted.
The imam told the NYT he had heard about the attack on the Hindu temple, and added, “Some people confuse Hindus and Muslims.” The police had promised protection for the Islamic centre, and the stepped-up security had reassured its members, the NYT added.
The report said that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo asked the State Police to help with the investigation, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “No matter what the motivation was of the individual who threw Molotov cocktails in Queens last night, his actions stand in stark contrast to the New York City of today that we’ve built together.”
Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, with New York Police cruisers parked outside and yellow police tape fluttering, Al-Sahlani met with a dozen other clerics from the city’s Muslim community. AP said that near a blackened spot on the concrete overhang of the Islamic foundation’s main entrance, the front gates remained open to the street on Monday, and anyone could walk in to worship.
“This is America, and we must continue to love one another,” Al-Sahlani, standing in flowing ritual robes in the main prayer hall, said with a smile.
“We were very surprised,” Al-Sahlani said. “This has never happened here before.”
The decades-old foundation is among the foremost Muslim institutions in New York, with branches around the world. Named for one of the most influential Shiite scholars, it promotes work in development, human rights and minority rights as a general consultant to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, AP said.
The sprawling complex has two minarets rising over an expressway that leads to the John F. Kennedy International Airport. Visitors over the years have included Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and various New York mayors and international diplomats, Al-Sahlani told AP.
Besides a prayer hall, library, kitchen and other facilities, the centre has a full, accredited school that resumes today after holiday break. Some parents were concerned about the attack, the imam told AP.
