Tech CEO's shock killing 'looks like a professional job'

NEW YORK • The killer, dressed entirely in black and wearing a black mask, followed the young technology entrepreneur from the elevator of his luxury condo building into his apartment.

Then he used an electrical stun gun to immobilise entrepreneur Fahim Saleh, detectives believe.

Some time after, the assailant killed Mr Saleh, decapitated him and dismembered his body with an electric saw.

The investigation was in its early stages, but that was the chilling account that a law enforcement official gave on Wednesday as detectives continued scrutinising evidence in the shock killing of Mr Saleh, 33.

His body parts were found on Tuesday in plastic garbage bags in his apartment at Manhattan's Lower East Side in New York City.

On Wednesday, the police continued their investigation at the building and inside Mr Saleh's apartment, a seventh-storey unit that he bought last year for US$2.25 million (S$3.14 million).

Investigators believe the killer's work dismembering the body was interrupted when the victim's sister entered the apartment to check on him after not hearing from him for a day, another law enforcement official said. Detectives think that the assailant fled into the building's stairwell.

A police spokesman said he could not comment on how the killer entered the building. The property's management company said the building did not have a doorman but had extensive security in place.

The management company, in a statement, said Mr Saleh was an active member of the condominium board.

On Tuesday, a law enforcement official said the electric saw was still plugged into an electrical outlet when the police arrived, and the killer had left some cleaning supplies behind. It appeared that some effort had been made to clean up the evidence.

The official who spoke on Wednesday said the killing "looks like a professional job", referring to it as a "hit".

Another police spokesman said he could not comment on a possible motive or whether any suspects had been identified.

Mr Saleh was CEO of motorcycle ride-hailing firm Gokada. The son of Bangladeshi immigrants who grew up near Poughkeepsie, New York, he founded ride-hailing firms in Bangladesh and Nigeria as well as a venture capital fund based in Manhattan that invested largely in companies in the developing world.

The law enforcement official said investigators were exploring whether Mr Saleh's killing might be related to his business, noting the indications that his company had been hurting.

NYTIMES