Rochester man found guilty in 2019 murder

(ABC 6 News) – Ayub Iman has been found guilty by a jury of aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

The 25-year-old Rochester man’s trial began Monday of last week and ended with closing arguments and jury deliberations Tuesday. An Olmsted County jury received the case around noon and returned their verdict at 4 p.m.

Iman was accused of aiding and abetting murder in the 2019 death of Garad Roble.

Roble’s body was found on March 5, 2019, on the 2300 block of 4th St SE in Rochester. He was shot eleven times.

Despite a lack of physical evidence placing Iman and his co-defendant, Muhidin Abukar at the scene, the state created a map and timeline of the night Roble died by using cell phone towers around Rochester — mapping out the movements of phones associated with Roble, Iman, and Abukar.

Iman’s co-defendant, Abukar, faced trial in December of last year which ended in a mistrial after 18 hours of jury deliberations.

After the verdict Tuesday, Olmsted County Attorney, Mark Ostrem, said, "It’s taken us a long time to get to this spot. It was really about putting the phones into these peoples’ hands and asking the jury to bring their real-life experiences to this deliberation."

The Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office, which first responded to the scene where Garad Roble’s body has been found has been working alongside his family throughout this case.

Sheriff Kevin Torgerson said, "They’ve just been really solid throughout all this despite the tragedy of losing a loved one. Just really all came together and did a great job of keeping the focus and that was to find out who did this."

Defense attorney James McGeeney said he plans to appeal.

Sentencing for Iman is scheduled for June 2.