Bail set at $1 million for man charged in shooting outside Bridgeview mosque

Bail was set Sunday at $1 million for an Orland Park man accused of shooting another man in the back following Friday prayer services at a Bridgeview mosque.

Rame R. Joudeh, 41, faces charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and reckless discharge of a firearm.

Prosecutors said that Joudeh confronted the 36-year-old man about 1 p.m. Friday after prayer services ended at the mosque in the 9200 block of Beloit Avenue.

At the time of the shooting, school kids were outside on recess at the adjacent Aqsa School, prosecutors said.

Joudeh had been in a black pickup truck. But when he saw the man outside the mosque, he allegedly got out of the truck and sprayed a “chemical irritant” in the man’s face. Then he opened fire with a Glock 17 pistol, grazing the man in the shoulder, prosecutors said.

Joudeh, of the 18000 block of Buckingham Drive in Orland Park, fled the scene after the shooting, but was later apprehended by Orland Park Police. A magazine loader was found in his vehicle, police said.

Prosecutors did not offer a motive, but did say that Joudeh knew the man he shot. The shooting was captured by surveillance cameras, prosecutors said.

“This was an isolated incident between two people who knew each other and at no time was there a threat to any of the children in the nearby Aqsa School or the mosque,” Bridgeview Police Chief Walter Klimek said in a statement.

Joudeh was previously charged in connection with an April 2011 domestic violence incident, authorities said.

If Joudeh is able to post bail, he must first surrender his passport, Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil ordered.