Metro

Sister of murdered tech CEO Fahim Saleh says he was ‘put back together’ for funeral

The sister of Fahim Saleh — the tech CEO who was murdered and dismembered inside his Manhattan apartment — posted an emotional tribute to her “beautiful” brother Thursday, revealing that his severed head and limbs were sewn back onto his body in time for his funeral.

The lengthy Medium post by Ruby Angela Saleh came on the one-month anniversary of the 33-year-old entrepreneur’s grisly death.

“On July 13th, 2020, exactly one month ago, my brother returned from a three-mile run and was murdered in his apartment,” Ruby wrote. “Sometimes it still doesn’t feel real that Fahim is gone. And sometimes it feels too precisely like the cruel, heinous, and unbearable reality that it is, letting me see nothing but darkness and feel nothing but piercing pain in every quadrant of my heart.”

The touching post includes multiple family photos of Fahim with his two sisters and parents and details of his life cut short — his love for his 3-year-old pomsky dog, Laila, his generosity toward his family and employees, his obsession with technology that began when he was just a kid.

“Fahim’s brain was a bottomless magic hat of ideas big and small, wacky and serious, local and global,” Ruby wrote of the tech whiz, who was the CEO of Nigerian ride-hailing motorcycle app Gokada. “You never knew what he was going to pull out next, but he got to work on every idea immediately. He couldn’t let one sit; he was too excited to usher the vision in his head into the world for the rest of us to enjoy.”

She said her family was broke when they moved from Saudi Arabia to America, where her father worked as a computer programmer in Louisiana. Fahim’s upbringing resonated with him after he made it in the tech industry.

“Having come from so little, Fahim had zero interest in being a rich entrepreneur who only hung out with other rich entrepreneurs,” Ruby wrote. “His heart was most open to those in need. ‘These drivers depend on me,’ he would say when talking about Gokada, the motorbike-hailing app he developed in Nigeria. Just as he had once been determined to ease our father’s hardships, he later dedicated himself to easing the hardships of countless others.”

Fahim’s former executive assistant, Tyrese Haspil, is charged with stabbing and dismembering his one-time boss after allegedly embezzling more than $90,000 from him. Fahim had offered to not call the police if Haspil, 21, repaid him in installments.

Ruby recalled phoning her sister after getting a panicked call from their aunt, who broke the news that Fahim had been murdered.

“She found his torso in his living room,” the sister told Ruby, referring to the cousin who allegedly interrupted Haspil as he chopped up Fahim’s body with an electric saw.

Fahim’s arms and legs were stuffed into trash bags scattered throughout his $2.2 million Lower East Side apartment.

1 of 15
Ruby and Fahim Saleh
Ruby and Fahim SalehSaleh family/Medium
Ruby and Fahim Saleh with their younger sister.
Ruby and Fahim Saleh with their younger sister.Saleh family/Medium
Advertisement
Fahim Saleh
Fahim SalehSaleh family/Medium
The Saleh family
The Saleh familySaleh family/Medium
The Saleh family
The Saleh familySaleh family/Medium
Advertisement
The Saleh family
The Saleh familySaleh family/Medium
Fahim Saleh
Fahim SalehSaleh family/Medium
The Saleh family
The Saleh familySaleh family/Medium
Advertisement
Ruby and Fahim Saleh
Ruby and Fahim SalehSaleh family/Medium
Fahim Saleh
Fahim SalehSaleh family/Medium
Ruby Saleh
Ruby SalehYouTube
Advertisement

Ruby said she had to identify her brother’s mutilated body via a photo on the computer due to the coronavirus outbreak — making his death all the more real.

“I began to caress his face on the computer screen with my index finger as tears poured down my cheeks,” she wrote. “I just wanted to tell him, ‘I’m so sorry, Fahim, I’m so sorry, Fahim. My poor, sweet brother. My heart.'”

She also recalled having to plead with the funeral home in Hudson Valley for her brother’s body parts to be in the “proper places in the casket” — after she was told it “would not be possible to sew his limbs and head back onto his torso before burial.”

“The day before the funeral, the man called me again,” Ruby wrote. “‘It wasn’t easy, but we were able to put him back together.'”

Ruby, who last saw her baby brother a year ago, also released a tearful YouTube video from her parents’ home, showing a mantel in the background lined with his photos.

“My family and I are in such shock and debilitating pain,” she said. “Our beautiful boy was taken from us and right now it doesn’t feel like life can ever be joyful again.”

The sister said her father spends his days looking after Fahim’s beloved Laila, “speaking to her in the same affectionate tone he reserved for my brother” and watching and reading about his son’s accomplishments.

“My mother spends her days crying,” Ruby wrote. “At night, she cannot sleep.”

Ruby vowed that her family would fight to bring Fahim’s killer to justice, calling his death “a crime of the most cruel and heinous nature.”

Haspil has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder charges.