A Somali cab driver who lived in a Rogers Park apartment building where a man died in a fatal fire last week allegedly set the blaze because he had been having a dispute with two female neighbors, officials said.

Mahad Ali Hassan, 26, of 6720 N. Sheridan Road, was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated arson and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. He was ordered held without bond this afternoon by Cook County Circuit Court Judge Peggy Chiampas.

In Hassan’s bond hearing, prosecutors said Hassan, who lived on the fourth floor of the building, had been having an ongoing dispute with two women who lived on the fifth floor. The fire was set in the fifth-floor hallway where a man’s body was located.

Prosecutors said in Hassan spray-painted an obscenity outside the women’s apartments and broke into their mailboxes two weeks ago, prosecutors said.  On Thursday, he allegedly poured gasoline in two places in the hallway, including outside the apartment door belonging to one of the women. Both of the women survived the fire, prosecutors said.

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Chicago Tribune

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