Bias motive not suspected in St. Paul mosque fire
The man who allegedly set fire to a St. Paul mosque this week is facing arson, burglary, and drug charges, but the Ramsey County Attorney's Office said there's no evidence of a hate crime.
Prosecutors allege that just prior to the Wednesday morning fire at the Oromo American Tawhid Islamic Center on N. Dale St., said Murekezi, 42, can be seen on surveillance video entering the building through a window that he had broken the day before.
The Islamic Center had been using the facility as an office, but it has not been a place of worship since 2021.
St. Paul Police arrested Murekezi Wednesday evening in downtown St. Paul. According to the criminal complaint, he allegedly admitted to police in an interview that he broke into the Islamic Center on Tuesday and stayed overnight “looking for things inside to burn.”
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Murekezi identified himself as Muslim and told investigators that he “burned the building as a form of protest because of other Muslims in the community having to sleep outside in the cold. He said that the building is not serving anyone, but the people need it,” according to the charges.
Murekezi also allegedly said that it was good he was caught, otherwise he would “torch another one,” or “a church.”
Investigators said that when police arrested Murekezi, officers found that he was carrying a substance that later tested positive for methamphetamine.
Police apprehended Murekezi after ATF agents requested help from a Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office unit that has access to facial recognition technology. Investigators matched stills from the surveillance video to other images of Murekezi, including a photo of him leaving the Hennepin County jail Monday evening, about 36 hours before the mosque fire.
Court and jail records show that Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport Police arrested Murekezi on April 28 at the Terminal 1 light rail platform after spotting him walking inside a train tunnel, allegedly with a meth pipe.
Hennepin County prosecutors charged Murekezi with gross misdemeanor trespass on a critical public service facility and possession of drug paraphernalia, a petty misdemeanor. He was jailed for about two weeks before a judge ordered him released without bond on the condition that he stay away from the airport.
Other court records show that Murekezi has struggled with drug abuse, mental illness and homelessness. He pleaded guilty to arson last year for setting fire to a pile of clothing in his room at Mary Hall in St. Paul, a Catholic Charities facility that provides private rooms to unhoused adults.
The heat caused a fire sprinkler to be activated. Authorities say Murekezi initially denied firefighters access to his room and threatened to jump from a fourth-floor window. After serving a brief jail term, Murekezi was placed on a year of supervised probation, which began in November.
In restraining orders that she filed in recent years, Murekezi’s former partner alleged that he had threatened her and their teenage son. She said Murekezi texted her a photo of himself pointing a gun, and other family members had expressed concern that Murekezi had not been taking prescriptions to treat his mental illness.
Murekezi made his initial appearance in Ramsey County Court on Friday, where a judge set bond at $200,000 and ordered a mental competency evaluation. Murekezi remains jailed.