By Alex Christodoulides
In the early morning hours of Dec. 22, Mohammad Solaiman, 49, allegedly stabbed his wife multiple times in the torso in their Cedarcroft Road apartment, according to police. The victim, 32-year-old Shahida Sultanna, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Because their 4-year-old daughter was in the apartment at the time, Solaiman was arrested on charges of endangering the welfare of a child in addition to counts for murder and criminal possession of a weapon after he was questioned by the 107th Precinct, according to police and the Queens district attorney's office.Solaiman allegedly knocked on a neighbor's door covered in blood and said he had killed his wife, nicknamed Lovely, three hours earlier, Sultanna's sister told the New York Post.The criminal complaint filed with the Queens district attorney's office lists the charges as second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence, along with the above charges.After allegedly stabbing Sultanna to death, Solaiman is accused of cleaning the knife or knives he had used and putting them back in the kitchen drawer, according to the criminal complaint.Based on Solaiman's own admissions, the little girl saw and was present with her father in the same room with Sultanna's dead body for up to three hours, according to the criminal complaint.Police said Friday that the Administration for Children's Services had placed the girl with an aunt, but declined to comment further. The address of the aunt was not known.Sultanna's death became the third homicide for 2007 in the precinct, after the shooting of Brian Paige, 26, at the Pomonok Houses in July, and Maria Fischman, 61, was beaten to death allegedly by her son, Michael Anthony, in the Electchester complex in July.Reach reporter Alex Christodoulides by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
