The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) has publicly denounced on Tuesday that the 21-year-old accused of brutal murder in New York should not be in the country because he is an undocumented migrant.
Reeaz Khan has appeared on Wednesday before the justice accused of raping and ending the life of María Fuertes, a 92-year-old Dominican woman who was affectionately known as “the lady of the cats” in her New York neighborhood of Queens for her love of food to stray animals.
"He lived for his cats, he lived for his family, it 's a very sick thing what happened," said a neighbor, Aneil Ram, to the NBC network, "if something like this can happen to an old woman like this, what else will it happen to any other woman?
The woman's body was found on January 6 not far from her home in the Richmond Hill neighborhood, with wounds in her neck and groin. A surveillance video showed how a man had followed her and attacked her from behind . Both fell to the ground after a parked car, and remained off camera for five minutes. Afterwards, the suspect reappeared in the image, alone and fleeing to the race.
“ It was a brutal act of senseless violence . The victim was found with clothes placed above her waist and near death. The defendant has been arrested and now faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life locked behind bars, ”said district attorney Melinda Katz.
Reeaz Khan, a resident of the same neighborhood, was arrested and now faces two counts of second-degree murder and sexual abuse for this " heinous attack ," The New York Times reported by quoting the district attorney.
According to ICE, Khan, originally from Guyana, was in the country illegally , and had previously been arrested, on November 27, for possession of weapons and for assaulting his father with a broken ceramic cup.
"The sanctuary city policy of New York continues to threaten the safety of its residents, as it insists on protecting foreign criminals who show little respect for the laws of this nation," Thomas R. Decker, ICE regional director denounced in a statement .
"It is clear that the position of New York City against detainers is dangerously flawed, " he added, "it was a deadly decision to release him." According to Decker, ICE issued one of these restraining orders after the first police arrest, so that the suspect was handed over.
New York is a sanctuary city , which limits police cooperation with ICE, and refuses to keep suspects detained beyond what the law says to allow immigration authorities time to capture them.
Local laws allow ICE to be given to those suspected of serious crimes , according to a 2014 law that details 170 crimes such as injuring someone in an accident with a car in which the driver is to blame (for example, for not obeying a traffic light ), threatening someone with a weapon (like a knife), harassing someone with phone calls or emails, or possessing marijuana for their own use.
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