Melanie Eversley

USA TODAY

NEW YORK – A 35-year-old man has been charged with murder in Saturday's shooting deaths of a Muslim imam and his friend in Queens, police said.

Oscar Morel of Brooklyn was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, the New York City Police Department said in a statement sent late Monday.

Earlier in the day, police were questioning Morel after connecting him to a vehicle they say he drove away from the scene of the shooting of Imam Maulama Alauddin Akonjee and friend Thara Uddin, as well as from the scene of a hit-and-run about 90 minutes earlier three miles away in Brooklyn, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.

The arrest came about after detectives studied video of the scene and observed Morel entering a black GMC Trailblazer and driving off quickly, Boyce said. They also observed video from the corner where the hit-and-run took place earlier and matched the vehicles down to the stickers and decals on the windows, Boyce said.

Police searched the area and found the Trailblazer near the site of the hit-and-run accident. They waited until Morel emerged at about 10 p.m. local time Sunday. As detectives approached him, he rammed a detective’s car several times in an effort to get away, Boyce said.

A witness to the hit-and-run picked Morel out in a line-up, he said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who attended a funeral for the two victims at Al-Furquan Jame Masjid mosque in Queens, said at a press conference Monday that the police department was going to pull together to help protect and reassure the city’s Muslim residents who he said might be worried.

"It's a very rare thing to see a cleric killed, and members of the Muslim community have been on edge because of the atmosphere already that existed in this country, particularly over the last few months in our national debate," he said.

He said the city’s Muslim community is “hurting so deeply right now,” and it is a painful time for all New Yorkers.

“In this city, we believe that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, and we will work together to encourage the kind of harmony … that New Yorkers believe in,” de Blasio said.

Earlier, during the funeral service for Akonjee, 55, and Uddin, 64, during which some mourners said they believe the two were shot as they left the mosque because of their religion, de Blasio offered condolences on behalf of all New Yorkers.

“It doesn’t matter what faith you come from, it doesn’t matter where you live in this city, as one, we feel this pain,” the mayor said to the 1,000 people in attendance. “For all those here who want justice, we want justice with you, too, and we will get justice for this community.”

The funeral took place as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested on Monday that immigrants be subjected to ideological testing to make sure they support American values and proposed a commission that would identify the principles of “radical Islam.”

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations blasted Trump’s ideas, saying the candidate’s views are not in keeping with the American values of tolerance and pluralism, and questioned whether the proposed commission would include bigots.