Muslim man charged with arson at mosque
by Kathryn Dobies
cherokeetribune.com
July 09, 2010 12:00 AM |
MARIETTA - Marietta Police say a 25-year-old African immigrant who prayed at the Masjid Al-Hedaya mosque in recent weeks has been charged with setting the fire that destroyed the place of worship earlier this week.
Tamsir Lucien Mendy, 25, was arrested at Marietta Fire headquarters about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Scott Tucker, assistant fire chief, announced at a news conference Thursday morning.
"We do know that he acted alone," Tucker said at the media gathering, which was also conducted at fire headquarters. "Why he did it was something that only he knows. We've got some information as to how he did it, but the exact motive is unclear. We know that it wasn't somebody from the outside that was interested in a hate crime type of situation, because he describes himself as being a very devout Muslim."
The mosque burned about 11:30 p.m. Monday, shortly after a nightly prayer service had ended. Tucker said Mendy was seen at the mosque that evening. The building sustained extensive water damage, but the roof did not collapse, Mayor Steve Tumlin said.
Tucker said "a great deal of physical evidence" links Mendy to the fire, but he declined to elaborate.
Mendy is being detained without bond at the Cobb County Jail on a single count of felony first-degree arson. Federal immigration authorities have put a hold on his release. His book-in sheet also lists a hold by Smyrna Police for a traffic case.
Mendy's book-in lists his address as an apartment with a Powder Spring mailing address. A man who answered a call to the phone number on the book-in sheet said he didn't know anyone with that name. Mendy's most recent employer is given as Austell Wings & More. A man who answered the telephone at that restaurant said Mendy had not worked there in at least a year.
Tucker said that Mendy is a native of Gambia, a country on the west coast of Africa, and that he had been attending the Masjid mosque, at 986 Powder Springs St. in Marietta, near the Sandtown Road intersection, for "a few weeks."
After hearing of the arrest, the mosque's imam, Hafiz Inayatullah, said he was surprised to learn that a Muslim had set the fire. Inayatullah said he met Mendy briefly a few weeks ago, but that Mendy did not regularly attend the mosque. Two tents were being set up outside the mosque on Thursday afternoon for prayer services, Inayatullah said.
"I don't know why he would do this," Inayatullah said. "I don't know what kind of a benefit he would get from it. ... I am at least satisfied that the investigators found a person."
The imam said Monday was not unusual, describing it as a "regular kind of day." But he did say that another man who had left the mosque the night of the fire saw Mendy hanging out there.
But Momodou Njie, 25, who is related to Mendy, said he believes Mendy is innocent. Njie's wife and Mendy are cousins, and Mendy has been living with the family for the last few weeks while he searched for a job, Njie said.
"I can say straight up that he didn't do it," Njie said. "He's a quiet guy. He doesn't talk much and is not a violent person. The fact that a sane Muslim is going to set the house of god on fire, doesn't make any sense."
On Wednesday, mosque officials and three men representing national Muslim organizations - including Siraj Wahhaj, imam of Masjid Al-Taqwa in Brooklyn, N.Y., and leader of Muslim Alliance in North America - addressed the media on the mosque grounds, condemning whoever set the fire and calling it an incident of "Islamophobia."
According to a November 2009 article in the New York Post, "Wahhaj was one of 170 people identified in 1995 as unindicted co-conspirators in the [World Trade Center] attack two years earlier. He has denied any involvement."
A call to the terrorism unit of the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday afternoon was not immediately returned.
Inayatullah, the local imam, said Thursday that Wahhaj and the other national leaders had already returned to their homes in New York and other cities.
Mayor Tumlin, who attended the Wednesday news conference in support of the local Muslims, said Thursday afternoon that he had just learned about Wahhaj from a reporter, and that he and the other council members who attended the event at the mosque on Wednesday were surprised to see the national Muslim leaders there. Council members Grif Chalfant, Johnny Sinclair and Philip Goldstein attended the Wednesday briefing, which was at the mosque.
"My first obligation was to stand behind the local congregation," Tumlin said on Thursday of Wednesday's meeting at the mosque. "Our statement was not any kind of agenda other than public safety, if somebody has an agenda any bigger than ours, then so be it. Our part of it was purely for public safety reasons."
Tumlin admitted that he had been a bit concerned on Wednesday when the national Muslim leaders openly called the arson a hate crime, but that he understood the worries of the local mosque congregation.
"I was a little bothered [Wednesday]. I grew up in the South where crosses were burned, and I think we're above that," Tumlin said. "It concerned me that some were speculating very early on that this was a hate crime. ... It can happen, but I just thought all the facts ought to be in before they started saying that."
Oddly enough, this was not the first arson fire at that property.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, tire dealer Tom Durrett and his wife, Margaret, raised their family in the home that has since been converted into the mosque. The Durretts had moved, but still owned the home, around 1973 when it was targeted by an arsonist, said Judi Snelson of Marietta, who is Tom's sister. The home was empty at the time of the fire, Snelson said.
Durrett Tire had four locations, one of which was a little further north of Powder Springs Street, closer to the Square. The Durretts now live in Temple, Snelson said.
Read more: Cherokee Tribune - Muslim man charged with arson at mosque |
