Albany cops probe Muslims and friends

Steve Downs, a retired state lawyer, and Shamshad Ahmad, professor of physics at SUNY Albany and president of a local mosque — were meeting with two other activists who had come up from New York City in a pizza shop at 328 Central Ave., having lunch and discussing the raid on Shamshad’s mosque that coincided with the arrest of two mosque members, Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, back in 2004 on charges of supporting terrorism, when in walked four Albany cops. The cops asked them to step outside, where several other cops were waiting, asked them what they had been talking about and demanded to see identification....