Man sentenced to over 13 years in prison for killing smoke shop employee
Elias-Kareem Hany Aly (Ramsey County Jail)
A man charged with killing a smoke shop employee in St. Paul last year has learned his prison sentence.
Elias-Kareem Hany Aly, 21, has been sentenced to 13.75 years (165 months) in prison, with credit for 498 days already served. As part of the sentencing, Aly must also pay $5,145.77 in restitution.
Aly was charged with two counts of second-degree murder last year, however, one count was dismissed.
Court records state that Aly was in Ramsey County Court on Feb. 16 for gross misdemeanor gun charges connected to a May 2020 incident.
Surveillance footage showed Aly and another man then leave the courthouse in a Dodge Durango and about 30 minutes later, police responded to reports of a shooting at Union Tobacco in St. Paul. Officers then found 48-year-old Abdul Arif on the ground with a gunshot wound to his chest.
Arif, a father of three, died after being taken to Regions Hospital.
Police spoke to a witness, another employee at the store, who said three men entered the smoke shop and were asked to remove their face coverings because of an ongoing issue with theft. The men then argued with staff, with one of them reportedly saying, “You don’t know this, but I’m about that life.”
The complaint states that Aly was wearing the same blue flannel shirt at the store that he was seen wearing at the courthouse. When Aly walked out of the store, he reached up and pulled down a green chime that contained a Ring camera off the door, then sat back in the Durango. Arif then picked up a baseball bat and walked out with another employee to get the chime back, and that’s when Arif was shot.
Surveillance video caught footage of the shooting, according to court documents. Arif was on the driver’s side of the Durango with the baseball bat, but he did not ever raise it. The footage shows Arif falling to the ground and then being helped up by the other employee before he fell down again and didn’t move on his own.
Aly was arrested the next day in a traffic stop outside an apartment building he lives in. The Durango was found in an underground parking garage. One of the men who was with Aly at the time of the shooting was arrested and questioned by police, who reportedly said, “That man didn’t have to die.”