Answers sought in slaying
Owner: Brothers didn’t argue before stabbing
Jon Hand
http://rochesterdemocrat.ny.newsmemory.com/
Staff writer
Ahmad Jawed Mohammad -Askar
After Tuesday’s fatal stabbing involving two brothers at Thali of India restaurant in Henrietta, the restaurant owner said Wednesday that he had seen no signs of problems between the men.
And sheriff’s officials confirmed Wednesday that the men are brothers of a teenager who in 2011 injured his 13 year-old cousin by stabbing her at the family’s Henrietta home. Makhan Singh, owner of the popular restaurant inside the Plaza at Winn-Jeff on Winton Road in Henrietta, said Mohamed H. Ghulam was a longtime kitchen employee who lived with his family in Henrietta. His brother, Ahmad Jawed Mohammad- Askar, 28, who was charged with second-degree murder in the death, had been working for him for only a couple of weeks, said Singh, who was running his catering business on Wednesday but said the restaurant is closed until further notice.
“I don’t know their family much, I really only know them from work, and I haven’t been to their house, I think they live together in Henrietta,” Singh said.
Sheriff’s investigators said a motive for the attack is still unclear.
They responded about 11:15 a.m. Tuesday to the restaurant at 3259 S. Winton Road for a report of a stabbing and found Mohammad-Askar in the parking lot, covered in blood.
Ghulam was transported to Strong Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Mohammad-Askar was taken into custody and transported to Strong. He later was released and arraigned in Henrietta Town Court.
Few details about the brothers are known, but Singh said the two men are from Afghanistan and worked in the kitchen, washing dishes and performing other duties.
Singh was not at the restaurant when the attack happened, he said, but a group of his employees were.
“There was no argument, nothing,” he said. “I was not there when it happened, but everybody who was working there said there was no argument.”
Mohammad-Askar was taken to Monroe County Jail with no bail. He is scheduled to appear in Henrietta Town Court at 9 a.m. Monday.
Mohammad-Askar and Ghulam are brothers of Faheem Abdul-Jaleel, who was 16 when he stabbed his 13-year-old cousin, Samina Qasim, 12 times in the neck at the family’s Henrietta home on Myrtlewood Drive on June 20, 2011. Authorities said he hid her behind a garbage can with her mouth covered with duct tape and fled the home.
The three brothers were refugees from Afghanistan whose parents were killed when they were young and who came to the United States and settled with their aunt in Henrietta, said John Bradley, the assistant public defender who represented Abdul-Jaleel.
In sentencing Abdul-Jaleel to 16 years in prison, County Court Judge James J. Piampiano called the stabbing “senseless, violent and vicious” and denied Abdul- Jaleel’s youthful offender status request.
Abdul-Jaleel, who was born in Afghanistan and was not a U.S citizen but was in the country legally, told Piampiano about his childhood, which included the death of both parents, a house fire and being mistreated by extended family before he came to America about six years earlier, about the same time Singh said Ghulam likely came to the United States.
Bradley, who said Abdul-Jaleel’s case is under appeal, said the brothers went back-and-forth between two different townhomes on Myrtlewood Drive owned by their aunt, and recalled the family being very close.
“My interactions with them, and seeing their interactions with each other, they all seemed very close,” Bradley said. “They attended his trial almost daily.”
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