Gunman in Canada attack complained about mosque

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The gunman who shot and killed a soldier in plain daylight then stormed Canada’s Parliament once complained that a Vancouver mosque he attended was too liberal and inclusive, and was kicked out after he repeatedly spent the night there even though officials told him to stop, Muslim leaders said Friday.

Aasim Rashid, spokesman for the British Columbia Muslim Association, said Michael Zehaf-Bibeau visited the Masjid Al-Salaam mosque for three to four months toward the end of 2011, and possibly early 2012, before he was told not to come back.

Rashid said that before Zehaf-Bibeau got in trouble for using the mosque for accommodations, he had complained to leaders in the previous administration about the mosque’s openness and willingness to let non-Muslims visit.

“The mosque administration sat him down and explained to him that this is how they run the mosque and that they will keep the doors open to all Muslims and non-Muslims who want to visit,” he said at a news conference held at the mosque Friday.

Rashid said Zehaf-Bibeau was told he should go pray at a different mosque if he disagreed. However, he stayed until he was ultimately asked to leave when officials learned he was still sleeping in the mosque while battling legal troubles.

After the second or third time, he was told to leave the premises and “not to come back,” Rashid said.

“This was the last interaction that the people of the mosque here have had with him,” he said.

Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, shot a soldier to death at Canada’s national war memorial Wednesday, and was eventually gunned down inside Parliament by the sergeant-at-arms.

His motive remains unknown, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called the shooting a terror attack, and the bloodshed raised fears that Canada is suffering reprisals for joining the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria.

The attack in Ottawa came two days after a man described as an “ISIL-inspired terrorist” ran over two soldiers in a parking lot in Quebec, killing one and injuring the other, before being shot to death by police. The man had been under surveillance by Canadian authorities, who feared he had jihadist ambitions and seized his passport when he tried to travel to Turkey.