Make New York Post a Preferred Source The teacher’s aide and ex-cop arrested in the brutal killing of a Brooklyn jogger regularly attended a mosque whose radical imam preached about warfare against Jews and opposing the US government.
Sayed Mohassib, 29, arrested Nov. 7, for allegedly stabbing to death Katie Suarez, 28, frequently prayed at the Muslim American Society (MAS) Youth Center, a neighbor told The Post.
“I see him go to pray, I see him work in the school,” said the 54-year-old neighbor, who identified MAS as the mosque Mohassib attended.
In a 2014 Facebook post, Mohassib mentioned Shafiq G. Majdalawieh, who is on the Board of Trustees for the Muslim American Society, according to his LinkedIn.
“Great speech on leadership by my man shafiq ! [sic] May Allah bless you with plenty hasanat! Shafiq G. Majdalawieh,” Mohassib wrote.
Imam Mohammad Badawy, director of the Bath Beach mosque, which is part of the New York chapter of MAS, has delivered numerous radical sermons, according to recordings from the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank the Middle East Media Research Institute.
One such sermon discussed a Hadith — a collection of statements and exploits of the Prophet Muhammad — which calls for jihad against Jews at the end of the world.
“The last hour won’t come before the Muslims would fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them so Jews would hide behind rocks and trees. Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,” the Hadith read.
In a December 2024 sermon, Badawy, 36, defended the Hadith and said that those who criticize it are “on the side of evil.”
“A lot of times, people will take this hadith and say, ‘Wow, look, your religion is insane. You want to kill Jews, Islam approved of a Holocaust, and how do you answer that?'” he said.
He went on to say that people who object to this Hadith have the “bloodiest hands.”
“This is what everyone believes the world is headed to, the final showdown between good and evil. Whose fault is it that they are on the side of evil, right? That’s the choice that they are going to make at that time,” he preached.
In January, he vowed that it was his life’s mission to oppose the US government, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Army.
MAS has received over $350,000 in taxpayer funding and has hosted vendors who hawked twisted trinkets promoting Hamas, Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at its Save Sudan event in January.
The neighbor said she hadn’t seen Mohassib at the mosque in recent weeks.
Mohassib pleaded not guilty to all charges when he was indicted by a grand jury Tuesday.
Badawy did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. Majdalawieh did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
