A 22-year-old man received a prison term Friday of nearly 14 years for fatally shooting a store employee outside a St. Paul tobacco shop after a dispute over refusal by the man’s group to remove their masks.
Elias-Kareem Hany Aly of St. Paul was sentenced in Ramsey County District Court after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the shooting on Feb. 16, 2023, of Abdullah Arif, 48, of Stillwater in the 500 block of Stryker Avenue on the West Side.
Including time in jail since his arrest, Aly is expected to be incarcerated for more than nine years followed by the balance of his 13¾-year term spent on supervised release.
Aly’s criminal history in Minnesota includes convictions for fleeing police in a vehicle and felony drug possession.
According to the criminal complaint:
Police were dispatched shortly after 3:30 p.m. and saw Arif on the ground at Union Tobacco with a gunshot wound to the chest. He died at Regions Hospital.
An ATM maintenance worker inside the shop told police that Aly and two other men came in and were told by staff to remove their masks. One employee explained that shop staff needed to see people’s faces because of problems with theft and other customer-related concerns.
Arif made the same request to one of the three men, who left the store and grabbed a chime attached to the door that rang when someone entered. The other men then warned Arif to watch his tone.
