The brother of a man shot and killed inside a Pompano Beach smoke shop is speaking out for the first time, expressing grief and a desperate search for answers as authorities announce an arrest in the case.
Grief and gratitude after deadly shooting
Hussein Abdelaziz said he is haunted by the memory of the shooting that took the life of his younger brother, 27-year-old Sayf Abdelaziz, just after midnight on March 30 as the two were closing up the Fire Up Smoke Shop on East Sample Road.
“I would like to thank God first and foremost. It was because of His will that this happened,” Hussein Abdelaziz told CBS News Miami. “And I would like to thank the Broward Sheriff’s Office as well.”
The Broward Sheriff’s Office said Claurry Paul, 25, of Pompano Beach, was arrested at an apartment in Atlanta with help from the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office fugitive unit.
BSO credited the arrest to the “relentless efforts” of its homicide unit.
A crime without a clear motive
According to BSO, the motive remains unclear and is still under investigation. Abdelaziz said no money or items were taken from the store and that his brother did not know the shooter.
“I still have a lot of unanswered questions as to why and what was the motive,” he said. “What caused him to shoot my brother at point-blank range? Why would he do such a thing? It is something I live with every day. I wake up and say, is this my reality? Was this really my brother? Was it his fate to die in such a nasty way? It is something you cannot forget.”
Abdelaziz said the store had only been in operation for two weeks when the shooting occurred. It has since reopened.
“He had no relations with him. He had no contact with this person,” he said. “This is not something where you wake up and forget. This is something that you will take to the grave with you. It would mean a lot to have my questions answered. It would mean everything. It is not going to bring my brother back, but it would mean a lot to me. It would give us some closure.”
He described Sayf as the store manager and a member of a close-knit family with two brothers and two sisters.
Suspect’s mother reacts
CBS News Miami also spoke with the suspect’s mother, Alberte Paul, who said she is a pastor at a local church and assists with a ministry in Haiti.
“I am a church lady. I am a minister. I always tell him the only thing you have to do is go to school, go to work and go to church. That is all you have to do,” she said.
“As a mother, you know it is not easy. It is not easy to end up on this one. But I don’t know if he did it or not.”
She said her son had been living with a girlfriend in Atlanta and had previously stayed in Sunrise. She also said BSO investigators came to her apartment in search of a firearm.
“When they came here, they said they were looking for a gun,” she said. “They said they were looking for a gun that was used to shoot someone. If he killed somebody, it is really shocking.”
Next steps in the case
Paul is being extradited to Broward County, where he faces a charge of first-degree murder with a firearm. Records show prior arrests for aggravated fleeing, carrying a concealed weapon, resisting arrest without violence, reckless driving, and loitering and prowling.
Court proceedings in Broward may provide the answers the Abdelaziz family is seeking.
