Man who killed 15-year-old Somali student at KC mosque sentenced to decades in prison
A 40-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday in the killing of a 15-year-old outside a Kansas City mosque in 2014.
Ahmed Aden has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder of Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein, a Somali student, who was in his sophomore year at Staley High School, according to a news release from the Jackson County Prosecutor’s office.
Abdisamad was leaving the Somali Center of Kansas City at Admiral Boulevard and Lydia Avenue on Dec. 4, 2014, when he was struck by an SUV driven by Aden, police said at the time.
Aden entered an Alford plea in December, conceding without admitting guilt that prosecutors had enough to convict him of second-degree murder and armed criminal action.
The FBI had investigated the crash as a possible hate crime. Aden was “outwardly anti-Muslim,” prosecutors have argued.
Abdisamad’s legs were nearly severed in the incident. He was taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital where he died that day.
In a news release posted shortly after Abdisamad’s death, the Kansas Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations cited Somali Center officials as saying a man had been threatening Muslims in Kansas City for months. It also said the vehicle involved in the boy’s death was seen months before bearing an anti-Islamic message written on a rear window in broken English.
When Abdisamad was hit, he “had just finished leading prayer and was about to leave with friends,” according to the news release.
“He didn’t care about your religion; he cared about you,” Nick Rocha, one of Abdisamad’s sophomore classmates at Staley, said in 2014. “If you’re ever having a bad day, think about the bright side, like he did.”
After Abdisamad’s death, his uncle, Abdinajib Dirir, said the family, who had emigrated from war-torn Somalia, was devastated.
“There are no words to describe,” Dirir said in 2014. “This is a community that fled a violent situation. Now we’re facing violence in the United States. … We are American like everyone else. And this is a tragedy for us.”
This story was originally published August 4, 2020 at 3:43 PM.
