A dispute between a landlord and his tenants in Brooklyn has ended with a long prison term, after the property owner turned to fire to settle it. A Brooklyn landlord convicted of lighting his own building on fire has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, closing a case that put an entire family in danger. The sentence marks the legal conclusion of an incident that could easily have turned deadly.
The man at the center of the case has now been named in the court record. According to court documents, Rafiqul Islam was the landlord responsible for the fire, set at an apartment building he owned. The documents lay out his role in deliberately igniting the blaze, the act that ultimately led to his conviction and the decade-long sentence handed down by the court.
The fire was set at a specific address in one of Brooklyn's residential neighborhoods. Islam set the apartment building at 212 Forbell Street, in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn, on fire. The location, an ordinary apartment building on a city street, underscores how the arson placed not just property but the people living there directly in harm's way.
The episode dates back more than two years, even as the sentencing only now brings it to a close. The fire happened in September of 2023, and the case has worked its way through the justice system in the time since. That gap between the night of the fire and the moment of sentencing reflects the course of the investigation and prosecution that followed.
Investigators were able to establish a motive rooted in the landlord-tenant relationship that had broken down. A police investigation found that Islam was angry because the tenants had stopped paying rent and had refused to move out. That combination, unpaid rent and tenants who would not leave, was identified as the source of the anger that authorities say drove him to set the building alight.
What made the act especially dangerous was who was inside when the flames were set. A family of eight was sleeping inside the building at the time of the fire, unaware that the very person who owned the property had chosen to set it ablaze. With multiple people, including a full household, asleep within the walls, the potential for tragedy was severe.
In the end, the people inside were spared the worst. Despite the fire and the fact that the family was asleep when it began, they were not hurt, escaping an incident that could have claimed lives. With the family unharmed and the case resolved, the 10-year sentence stands as the court's response to a landlord who put eight people at risk over a fight about rent.