It took more than a decade, but the man who murdered Orlando Requena at a Maricopa business in 2012 was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month after being convicted in January.
Now, Abdullatif Ali Aldosary has filed a notice of appeal to start the process of challenging his conviction.
Aldosary, 57, was found guilty by a Pinal County jury of the first-degree premeditated murder of Requena, 26, on Nov. 27, 2012. Requena was shot at close range after being ambushed by a man in a mask while working at Arizona Grain.
The jury also returned a guilty verdict on one count of aggravated assault involving the same shooting.
Judge Joseph Georgini ordered Aldosary to serve a life sentence. The Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) website shows Aldosary was transferred to prison on March 13 to begin serving his sentence.
The judge will appoint a new attorney for Aldosary to review the case and determine if there are any grounds to pursue on appeal. That process could take months or even a few years.
In the meantime, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has served a detainer notice to ADC in the event Aldosary, who arrived in the U.S. in 1997 as an Iraqi refugee, is ever released from prison.
Court records show Aldosary became a suspect in Requena’s murder three days later while under investigation for detonating an explosive device outside the Social Security building in Casa Grande on Nov. 30, 2012. No one was injured in the explosion, which was connected to Aldosary based on witnesses who noted the license plate of a suspicious vehicle.
Authorities who searched Aldosary’s residence and vehicle as part of the explosion investigation found various evidence tying him to that crime. They also discovered a gun and other items which tied Aldosary to Requena’s murder.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Aldosary with various offenses involving the , explosion, including malicious damage of federal property and being a felon in possession of a firearm (based on a 2008 harassment conviction). Aldosary was convicted in federal court of the weapons charge and was sentenced to five years while awaiting trial in the murder case.
The Pinal County Attorney’s Office announced its intent to seek the death penalty when Aldosary was initially indicted by a county grand jury in 2013 for first-degree murder. But that decision was reversed in 2017 after a new county attorney took office.
Frequent delays occurred with moving the case toward trial due in part to Aldosary’s mental health issues. He was forced into Arizona State Hospital for inpatient competency treatment under a court-ordered civil commitment in 2018.
The commitment led to dismissal of the murder case in early 2019. A subsequent grand jury reindicted Aldosary for murder, and in June 2022 he was deemed competent to stand trial.
That trial in January was over in less than two weeks. By then, Requena’s family had waited more than 525 weeks for resolution of the case.
The exact motive for Requena’s murder has never been revealed by Aldosary.