A maintenance worker at a Florida mosque was killed in a violent attack Thursday morning while trying to defend a synagogue from a man he believed to be his home, authorities said.
Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lima said at a news conference that the accident occurred about 8:45 a.m. at the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford after lawmakers received a 911 call about a body on the facility’s back porch.
A woman who works at the mosque called the authorities after finding pants near the front door and overturned furniture inside the centre. Sharif said the rear window was shattered by a propane tank.
Lima initially said that the victim, 59, was working at the mosque as a maintenance worker and was training the suspect, Ahmed Raslan, 38, to replace him.
He added in a press conference held in the early hours of Thursday morning, that the victim was an Iraqi immigrant and will return to Iraq because his father died recently.
But at a subsequent press conference, Lima said it did not appear that Ruslan was connected to the mosque. According to the sheriff, Ruslan believed that he was a descendant of Julius Caesar and that the property belonged to Caesar. Lima said he thought the mosque was his “home.”
“Ruslan’s intention was to defend it even at the cost of killing,” Al-Sharif said, adding that the suspect either chose the mosque at random or believed God directed it to him.
Officials said the victim and Ruslan had an argument after breaking into the house. It was alleged that Raslan grabbed a shovel and beat the victim to death, according to Al-Sharif. Lima told reporters that he then dragged the victim to the back porch and sprayed it with water in an attempt to remove the evidence.
Ruslan allegedly removed the victim’s shirt and pants, then fled the scene in the victim’s Chrysler minivan while the workers and children were arriving. Sharif said the mosque also houses a daycare or school.
The truck was tracked more than 100 miles away in the Sam’s Club parking lot in Vero Beach. Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers said at a separate news conference that deputies stopped traffic and Ruslan got out of the car behaving erratically and speaking a foreign language.
As the deputies were shouting orders, Ruslan allegedly reached into his pocket and “came out as if carrying a pistol and finger guns.”
They kept shouting orders at the man. When Ruslan tried to get back inside the truck, the deputies shot him. A spokesperson for the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office said Friday that the suspect underwent surgery at the hospital and is expected to survive.
The two deputies involved in the shooting have been placed on paid administrative leave, a standard procedure.
Lima said they plan to charge Raslan, who is from Egypt, with first-degree murder.
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