Qaisar Shahzad says he hasn't been able to eat or sleep since Saturday night when he saw his friend from Pakistan fatally shot while sitting beside him in a Carney restaurant.

"My friend died in my lap," Shahzad said yesterday, sitting in a booth near the front of Wings Things 'n' More, a takeout restaurant in the 3000 block of E. Joppa Road. The booth was near the one where Raheel Kamal, 18, a community college student who came to this country for his education, was killed during a robbery.

Shahzad said that he, Kamal and two other employees were sitting in a booth at the side of the restaurant when three masked men walked in about 11:45 p.m. and demanded money. Shahzad said the night manager told the three men to take the money and not hurt anybody. The four employees were the only people in the restaurant at the time.

Kamal reached up to take off his glasses, and one of the gunmen shot him in the back of the head, Shahzad said. The robbers then fled.

Shahzad said Kamal slumped against him, but he didn't realize right away that his friend had been shot in the head.

"We called 911, and the operator asked if he was breathing," Shahzad said. "But I think he was already dead."

Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey confirmed yesterday that Kamal had been shot once in the head.

Kamal had been in this country for seven or eight months. He was a part-time student at the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville, taking classes in business administration, according to a college spokeswoman.

He was studying to be a certified public accountant, said Ahmad Nadeem, the restaurant's owner and manager.

The employees were a close-knit group, in part because some of them had emigrated from Lahore, one of the largest cities in Pakistan. Nadeem left Lahore 14 years ago. He said he bought the restaurant in January after moving to Baltimore from New York.

"The four employees were just sitting here eating," Nadeem said.

Nadeem said that Kamal, a family friend, had worked at the restaurant since coming to Baltimore. "He was more than just an employee," Nadeem said. "He was like a brother to me."

Kamal had been sharing living quarters with Nadeem's brother in the nearby Perry Hall Apartments. He received his student visa in August, shortly before the start of classes at the community college.

Nadeem said that he and his brother drove Kamal, who hadn't gotten his license, to his classes in Catonsville.

Kamal "spent most of his time here in the shop when he wasn't in school," Nadeem said. "Sometimes he would go to the movies. He was a very friendly young man, and never had any problems with anybody."

Nadeem said Kamal was honest and hard-working, willing to come in whenever they needed him. He was the only son in a family of four, which included his sister, mother and father, a retired colonel in the Pakistani army.

"Raheel's family was planning to visit him in December," Nadeem said. "He was planning to go to the airport to pick them up."

Nadeem said his brother went to Washington yesterday to make arrangements for Kamal's body to be returned to Pakistan for burial.

Prayer services will be held at 2:30 p.m. today at the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque at 6631 Johnnycake Road in Catonsville.

"I have lived in this country for 14 years, and this is the first time anything like this has happened," Nadeem said.

The neighborhood is generally considered safe, and police spokesman Toohey said yesterday it was "a very unusual crime for this area."

County police are continuing their investigation.