Alexandre Bissonnette has been accused of killing six people and wounding eight others in a “barbaric” massacre Sunday night at a Quebec City mosque, TVA News reports.
The 27-year-old entered the Centre Culturel Islamique de Quebec and opened fire with rifles, shooting members of the mosque as they prayed, police and witnesses say.
He is in police custody and was being questioned Monday morning. He is expected to face murder charges.
A second man, Mohamed el Khadir, was previously identified by authorities as a suspect. He was taken into custody near the mosque and questioned, but Quebec Provincial Police said in a tweet Monday afternoon that he is no longer considered to be a suspect. He is now being called a witness.
Police and politicians are calling it a terrorist attack, La Presse reports.
The victims range in age from 39 to 70, police said. Only one, Azzedine Soufiane, has been identified publicly so far. A friend told the Montreal Gazette that Soufiane was a father of three young children and was well known in the community.
“We’ve just lost someone who was very, very nice, a good person … such a loss, someone who was so welcoming, who helped everybody,” Ali Miladi told the newspaper.
“Why is this happening here? This is barbaric,” the mosque’s president, Mohamed Yangui, told reporters. He was not at the mosque at the time of the shooting, but rushed to the scene after calls from members of the community.
The terror case is being led by the Quebec Provincial Police, along with Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Quebec City Police.
Here’s what you need to know about the suspect and the attack:
0 nhận xét:
Post a Comment