In a dispute for control of a mosque, a Syrian-born imam in London was shot dead last year by a hitman hired by a Muslim leader.
Forty-eight-year-old Abdul Hadi Arwani, from Acton, was sprayed with bullets from a MAC-10 sub-machine gun by Iraq war veteran Leslie Cooper on the orders of Khalid Rashad. He was found slumped in the driver’s seat of his VW Passat in a street in Wembley with the engine still running and a bullet wound in his chest in April last year.
Khalid Rashad, a Muslim convert, has also been found guilty of keeping military-grade explosives and ammunition in the garden of his London home in Wembley.
The court heard thirty-eight-year-old Jamaica-born Cooper did the “dirty work” for the sixty-three-year-old Rashad, who had been in a long dispute with Arwani over the ownership of An Noor Cultural and Community Centre in Acton.
As part of his defence, Rashad told jurors MI5 was “unhappy” he had twice refused to act as a “secret agent” for them, spying on the Muslim community in west London in 2012.
Cooper denied all knowledge of the murder when he was arrested, but a search of his home uncovered the MAC-10 with ammunition and silencer hidden inside a shopping bag.
Rashad denied knowledge of the murder or speaking to his co-accused about his dispute with the victim.
The two men were each sentenced to life with a minimum term of 32 years.
