Ottawa gunman ‘a misfit’ who planned to travel to Syria

Latest update : 2014-10-24 France 24

First investigations into the man who launched a deadly attack on Canada’s parliament on Wednesday draw the contours of a misfit with a history of drug addiction and petty crime who travelled a troubled path towards radical Islam.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot dead a soldier at Ottawa's national war memorial Wednesday then stormed the Parliament building, where he was gunned down by the sergeant-at-arms.

The brazen attack, the second targeting Canada’s military in 48 hours, has plunged the traditionally peaceful country into national soul-searching.

Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, was a Canadian national who may also have held Libyan citizenship, said Bob Paulson, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), in comments to reporters on Thursday.

He was born in Montreal in 1982 to a Libyan father and a Canadian mother, and went on to live in Calgary and Vancouver.

Court records show the parents petitioned in 1995 to change their son's name from Joseph Paul Michael Bibeau to Joseph Paul Michael Abdallah Bulgasem Zehaf Bibeau.

"(He) was lost and did not fit in. I his mother spoke with him last week over lunch, I had not seen him for over five years before that," a woman who identified herself as Zehaf-Bibeau's mother said in a statement provided to the Associated Press on Thursday.

According to FRANCE 24’s Emmanuel Saint-Martin, reporting from Ottawa, Zehaf-Bibeau‘s father is thought to have returned to Libya in 2011 to take part in the uprising against the country’s former strongman, Muammar Gaddafi.

Bound for the Middle East

Police said Zehaf-Bibeau was himself trying to reach Syria before Wednesday’s attack. Several sources interviewed by Canadian media have said he previously spoke of “going back to Libya”.

Zehaf-Bibeau had recently applied for a passport and had arrived in Ottawa on Oct. 2 to try to speed that process.

Checks by the RCMP revealed infractions related to drugs, violence and other criminal activities, but did not turn up any evidence of national security-related criminality, Paulson said.

The commissioner said delays in processing the passport may have helped motivate the attack.

"Canada has lost its innocence" -- FRANCE 24's Lorna Shaddick reports from Ottawa

The RCMP said it had only learned of the suspect's interest in traveling to Syria when it interviewed his mother on Wednesday.

Zehaf-Bibeau has been described as a convert to Islam, like the assailant in Monday’s attack, 25-year-old Martin Couture-Rouleau, who ran over two Canadian soldiers with his car, killing one.

But police say the two have no apparent link.

"We have no information linking the two attacks this week," Paulson told reporters in Ottawa, which remained on high security alert.

He said police expected to swiftly determine whether Zehaf-Bibeau received support in planning his attack.

Petty crime

Though known to law enforcement officials, Zehaf-Bibeau was not deemed dangerous enough to feature on a list of 93 people the RCMP were investigating as "high-risk travellers”.

"He is an interesting individual in the sense he had a very developed criminality ... a non-national-security related criminality of violence and of drugs and of mental instability," Paulson said.

A Michael Joseph Paul Zehaf-Bibeau was charged with robbery in Vancouver in December 2011, according to court documents, and was later found guilty of a lesser count of uttering threats.

He also had multiple run-ins with police in the French-speaking province of Quebec.

Court records show three 2004 cases involving a Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who pleaded guilty to two drug-related offences and one charge of failing to comply with a judge's order.

Paulson said a priority for police would be to determine what led the petty criminal onto the path of radical Islam.

"We need to investigate and understand his radicalisation process," he said, adding that “there is no one path or one formula to radicalisation."

The commissioner said Zehaf-Bibeau's email was found in the hard drive of someone charged with what he called a terrorist-related offence, without offering further details.

FRANCE 24’s Emmanuel Saint-Martin said Zehaf-Bibeau’s extremist views had not gone unnoticed in mosques he attended.

“His behaviour had shocked elders, who asked him to stay away from their mosques,” he said.

‘Crack addict’

Other sources have highlighted Zehaf-Bibeau’s drug addiction, and possible mental illness, as potential motives in the attacks.

In 2011, a homeless Zehaf-Bibeau begged a British Columbia judge to put him in jail so he could overcome a crack cocaine addiction, according to court records reported by Canadian media.

"I went to see the RCMP, I told them, 'Just put me in so I could do my time for what I confessed.' They couldn't. So, I warned them, 'If you can't keep me in, I'm going to do something right now just to be put in.' So I went to do another robbery just so I could come to jail," Zehaf-Bibeau said, describing himself as “a crack addict and at the same time a religious person”.

A friend who lived with him at a Vancouver homeless shelter said Zehaf-Bibeau had tried unsuccessfully to get off drugs.

"We referred to him as Muslim Mike," Steve Sikich told Reuters. "He didn't seem like a bad guy."

Sikich said their last encounter was "a month or two ago". Zehaf-Bibeau had appeared grey and sickly, back on drugs, and was rambling about wanting to travel to Libya and then join the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria.

"He was crying on my shoulder (…) saying, 'I can't take it anymore. I'm going back home to Libya'," said Sikich.

Witnesses say Zehaf-Bibeau stayed at a homeless shelter in a downtrodden part of Ottawa for at least a week before the attack..

Police have interviewed people who were at the shelter, but all said they had no knowledge of his plans.

A resident who identified himself as Mark suggested Zehaf-Bibeau had two sides.

One day, Zehaf-Bibeau "snapped" and acted aggressively with other residents, Mark said. He later apologised.

"It just floors me because he was all right," Mark said. "Maybe he was mentally challenged or something. What causes somebody to snap like that?"

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)