A New York City man was convicted Friday of first-degree murder for the broad daylight killings of a Bangladeshi Muslim cleric and his assistant.

The suspect in the "assassination" of an imam and his friend after they left a mosque has the murder weapon stashed in the wall of his basement apartment, investigators said Tuesday.

A New York City man was due in court to be charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of a Muslim imam from Bangladesh and his assistant who were gunned down in New York over the weekend, police say.