Joined by Mayor Mamdani, friends and family on Thursday laid to rest an East Village deli worker who police said was shot and killed during a dispute with a troublemaking former customer.
Mourners crowded the Beit El-Maqdis Islamic Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and said prayers over the body of Abdul Saleh, 28, who was gunned down Saturday night outside the Avenue B and E. 13th St. bodega where he was working so he could raise money to send to his wife and young children in Yemen.
Abdul Saleh, 28, was shot to death outside an East Village deli on Saturday, April 25, 2026.
The second-generation deli clerk was pursuing the same dream as his father, to bring his family to join him in the U.S., and had just met his 2-year-old son for the first time during a trip abroad just days before the shooting.
“Everyone loved him in the community, everybody,” Ahmed Hussein 69, the victim’s heartbroken father said in Arabic at a graveside ceremony at Marlboro Muslim Memorial Cemetery in Morganville, N.J.
The father of bodega worker Abdul Saleh, Ahmed Saleh, prays next to his son’s coffin Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Brooklyn, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
“His final moments before his death, he said to his brother, ‘I want my kids, my kids, my kids. Take care of my kids.”
Hussein said the family is urging the U.S. government to expedite their petition for Saleh’s wife and children to come to the U.S.
The casket of bodega worker Abdul Saleh is carried to a grave in Marlboro Muslim Cemetery Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Morganville, New Jersey. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
More than a decade ago, Hussein himself had a brush with death when he thwarted a robbery at a Bronx bodega where he was working.
Two gun-toting robbers ran off after Hussein swiped away the arm of one of the attackers, but not before a shot was fired into the place’s laminated counter, just inches from where Hussein stood.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani joins family and community members as they pray during the funeral for bodega worker Abdul Saleh Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Brooklyn, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
His son was not so lucky.
After attending the funeral and mourning for the victim while standing beside the slain man’s father, Mamdani left the mosque without commenting to the press.
Later in the afternoon, a group of around 100 gathered for Saleh’s burial in Marlboro Muslim Memorial Cemetery in Morganville, N.J.
“We know, in our religion, whoever dies protecting his property, protecting his family, protecting his religion and protecting his honor, he is granted the death of a martyr,” Chaplain Umair Ibn Turab, the funeral director, told those gathered.
Mourners pray over Abdul Saleh’s grave in Marlboro Muslim Cemetery Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Morganville, New Jersey. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
“And we ask God Almighty to accept him for his death as a martyr.”
The accused shooter, 28-year-old Kavone Horton, was in critical but stable condition after being struck by a ricocheting bullet from his own gun, police sources said. He was charged Monday with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon.