Ex-cop charged in brutal jogger slaying attended radical Brooklyn mosque

Sayed Mohassib, a 29-year-old former police officer and teacher’s aide accused of killing Brooklyn jogger Katie Suarez, pleaded not guilty after a grand jury indictment. The article reports that a neighbour said Mohassib regularly attended a Brooklyn mosque, and links the mosque to sermons by its imam that addressed hostility towards Jews and opposition to the US government.

The article cites recordings of Imam Mohammad Badawy discussing a Hadith about Muslims fighting Jews at the end of the world, and a December 2024 sermon in which he defended the text against critics. It also says Badawy vowed in January to oppose the US government, ICE and the US Army, and that the Muslim American Society had received more than $350,000 in taxpayer funding. The neighbour said she had not seen Mohassib at the mosque in recent weeks; the imam and a society board member did not respond to requests for comment.