MN Supreme Court Won’t Review Rochester Man’s Murder Conviction

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St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - One of the men sent to prison for an "execution-style" murder on the outskirts of Rochester several years ago has run out of appeals.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has given notice that it has declined a request to review the case of Ayub Iman. The 27-year-old Rochester man is now serving a 27-year prison sentence for his conviction on a second-degree murder charge involving the death of another Rochester man in 2019. The Minnesota Court of Appeals previously rejected his appeal to have the conviction overturned.

Court records show Iman was accused of shooting 28-year-old Garad Roble nearly a dozen times on what was then a gravel road that connected the Shoppes on Maine Shopping complex to Olmsted County Road 1 on the southeast edge of Rochester. A second man, Muhidin Abukar, entered into a plea agreement after his trial ended in a hung jury and is now serving a 14-year prison sentence for Roble's murder.

The evidence connecting the men to the murder was largely circumstantial and was based on cell phone tracking data that put Iman at the crime scene around the time the murder occurred. In its ruling, the Court of Appeals found, based on Iman's actions leading up to e and following the murder, "the circumstances proved are inconsistent with the rational hypothesis that he was merely present at the scene of Roble's murder."