A New York-based Guyanese man was shot dead and his body burned in his apartment a week ago as part of what police have said was a plot to kill all the tenants in his South Richmond Hill, Queens building.
Two persons, Stephen Peters, 22, and Jason St Hill, 17, have been charged with the murder of Azeem Ali, 43, whose scorched remains were found in his second-floor apartment after fire-fighters managed to put out the blaze, the New York Daily News reported.
It said Peters and Stephens, who live on 95th Ave. which is less than a block away from the targeted house on 116th St., were both arraigned on Friday on charges of kidnapping, arson, murder, burglary and robbery. They are being held without bail.
The Daily News report quoted police sources as saying Peters and St. Hill were hired by a man who wanted to kill the building’s four tenants. The man, who is being sought by police, had been angry with the tenants since May, when he was accused of molesting one of them, police sources also said.
The report said “the hitmen” burst into Ali’s home just before 2:30 am last Sunday, trussed and gagged him and then pistol-whipped him.
Peters was identified as the person who shot Ali once in the head, execution-style, after the man gave them the personal identification number for his ATM card. He then found a gas can and set the apartment on fire to cover his tracks, sources told the newspaper.
More than 100 fire-fighters had responded to the two-alarm fire in South Richmond Hill, and once they managed to extinguish it, investigators found Ali bound in his bed with the gunshot wound to the head.
He was “tied at the feet with electrical cord, tied around the shoulders with speaker wire and shot one time in the head,” a law enforcement official was quoted as saying in a Wall Street Journal report
Ali was positively identified by his brother at the scene.
A friend, Edward Ramrop, 58, said Ali, known as Andy, was a hardworking Guyanese immigrant who sent money home to his wife and teenage daughter.
“He was a quiet person,” Ramrop said. “He worked as a body man, he was a machinist.”
