An NYPD detective has been stripped of his gun and shield and placed on modified duty after he was linked in court papers to a 2005 homicide in Connecticut involving two of his high school friends, the Daily News has learned.

Det. Rohail Khalid is named in an arrest warrant for Mohammed Ali, who is facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to murder for the Feb. 9, 2005 killing of Brooklyn livery cab driver Mureed Hussain.

The cabbie was found shot in the back of the head and dumped on the side of the road in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

Ali’s arrest warrant includes information about the original investigation in 2005. At the time, Khalid was identified as  one of “three persons believed to be involved in the case,” the documents say. He has adamantly denied any involvement in the killing and, when the murder took place, gave detectives an alibi, court documents confirm.

When a fresh look was given to the two-decade-old killing, Khalid, now 38, offered his DNA to Connecticut detectives to see if it could be matched to items recovered on Hussain’s person or in his cab, which was recovered in Brooklyn after the killing near where the detective and his friends once lived, his attorney John Arlia said.

“Det. Rohail Khalid was cleared by the NYPD in this investigation some 20 years ago, when he appeared voluntarily to assist in the investigation and accordingly no arrests were made,” said Arlia, who is conflict trial counsel for each of the NYPD law enforcement unions. “[He] offered his DNA for testing to prove he was never involved with any criminality. This DNA test was negative and thus exonerates him from these false accusations.”

Additional DNA tests ordered by Windsor Locks police have yet to be completed, but when they are, Det. Khalid will be exonerated, Arlia said.

“Det. Rohail Khalid is a law-abiding citizen and has dedicated himself to the safety and security of New Yorkers first as a police officer, and now as a Detective,” the attorney said.

Khalid is currently president of the department’s Pakistani American Law Enforcement Society.

Khalid was initially identified as one of three men picked up by Hussain at the Eastland Cab Company in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn the night he disappeared, according to a criminal affidavit filed in Hartford, Connecticut. Hussain was found fatally shot in Connecticut the next morning and his cab missing.

Windsor Locks detectives arrested Ali on Wednesday.

A third suspect, Arfan Butt, 38, was shot and killed as he drove his gold BMW through Brooklyn in 2020, officials said. At the time of his death he was a registered sex offender convicted of first-degree rape, cops said. His murder remains unsolved, although police believe he was shot by his passenger.

Butt

Arfan Butt, 33, was sitting in the driver seat of his BMW on 78th St. near 12th Ave. in Dyker Heights when his two passengers got out and fired into the vehicle in September 2020, police sources said. (Obtained by Daily News)

Khalid’s link to the killing was first reported in CT Insider.

Khalid, Butt and Ali were friends who attended James Madison High School. They also lived in Marine Park, Brooklyn, where Hussain’s cab was found a few days after the murder.

On the night of the killing, three young men, led by Ali, showed up at the Eastland Cab Company headquarters and asked to be driven to Connecticut. Hussain agreed to drive them there for $200, the complaint reads.

Another cab driver at the office identified Ali as the one asking for the ride, but the other two men waited outside and couldn’t be identified.

Detectives at the time zeroed in on Khalid because he often hung out with Ali and Butts and lived near where the cab was found, court documents note. Blood was found in the cab, leading police to believe Hussain was shot inside his car.

In April 2005, two months after the killing, Khalid showed up at the 62nd Precinct unsolicited and spoke to detectives with an attorney, the complaint states. He claimed he was working at the bagel shop Bagelicious from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the night of the murder, and couldn’t have been involved in Hussain’s death.

While a manager at Bagelicious remembered he was there, his alibi couldn’t be corroborated by security video or timecard records, court documents state.

The case ultimately went cold after detectives couldn’t get enough evidence to arrest anyone. But it heated up last February when detectives from the Windsor Locks police department took a fresh look at the killing.

“Through advancements in forensic technology, interviews, canvassing, and a re-examination of the evidence seized in 2005, detectives developed suspects,” the Windsor Locks PD said in a statement announcing Ali’s arrest.

Both Butt and Ali were linked to the killing through DNA evidence collected inside Hussain’s cab, officials said. Ali’s DNA was found on Hussain’s clothing in areas that would be consistent with pulling a body out of a car and dragging him away.

Dyker

Cops investigate the scene on 78th St. near 12th Ave. in Dyker Heights on September 13, 2020. (Jeff Bachner for New York Daily News)

Khalid joined the NYPD in 2011, about six years after the murder. According to his department personnel file, he was promoted to third-grade detective in 2017.

In July, as detectives in Windsor Locks were taking a new look into the case and had asked Khalid to supply a DNA swab, the NYPD placed the detective on modified assignment, stripping Khalid of his gun and shield and moving him to the Manhattan Court Section.

He is still employed by the NYPD, officials said. The NYPD confirmed that he is on modified assignment but did not respond to requests for comment regarding the investigation into the 2005 homicide.

Ali fled the country after the killing. After an arrest warrant was filed earlier this year, U.S. Marshals located Ali in Dublin, Ohio in March. He was extradited back to Connecticut, arraigned on murder charges Thursday and ordered held without bail.

“This case is still on-going and additional suspects have been developed,” the Windsor Locks PD said on Facebook.

With Rocco Parascandola and Graham Rayman

Originally Published: April 18, 2025 at 6:30 PM EDT