Son of killer in Muslim slayings charged in rape of 15-year-old

The son of a man serving a life sentence in the high-profile killings of three Muslim men is facing criminal charges in a separate case.

Adil Syed, 26, is charged with two counts of criminal sexual penetration in the alleged May 25 rape of a 15-year-old girl at an Albuquerque park.

His father, Muhammad Syed, was sentenced to life in prison last November for fatally shooting three Muslim men over a two-week span in 2022.

Adil Syed was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on Friday. It is unclear if he has an attorney.

Syed most recently faced a battery charge in April for a family fight, but the case was dismissed.

In 2021, Adil Syed told police he had fired a gun at a man in self-defense outside a Walmart near Zuni and San Mateo SE. He never faced charges in that incident.

On May 27, a woman came to a police station in Southwest Albuquerque to report her granddaughter had been raped days earlier, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. The grandmother said the girl, identified as A.A., had been having panic attacks and nightmares and had “contracted a lifelong illness” as a result of the attack.

Police said A.A. told them she met her attacker on Snapchat, and on May 25, he picked up her and her two cousins. The girl said the man drove them to a park and locked the doors after her cousins got out.

The girl told police the man raped her as she cried and tried to push him away, only stopping when her cousins came back, according to the complaint. She said the man took them back to her aunt’s apartment, where her cousin briefly fought with him.

Police said A.A. told them she had become suicidal since the rape.

The complaint states detectives traced the suspect’s Snapchat to Adil Syed and confirmed he matched the description of A.A.’s attacker.

One cousin told police that the girl “lied about the rape” and it was consensual, but the girl’s other cousin said otherwise, according to the complaint. The cousin added that he fought the rapist because he was “overprotective” of A.A.

Police said on July 2 detectives got a search warrant for Adil Syed’s DNA to compare to any found in A.A.’s rape kit. Syed told police he would not provide DNA until he spoke with an attorney but never called them back.

Albuquerque police spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos said on Friday officers arrested Syed at his family’s home in Southwest Albuquerque.