Tuesday January 31, 2017
By ALLAN WOODS
Taken into police custody as one of two shooters police alleged were behind the killings, Mohamed Belkhadir spent a night in jail.
The chaotic scene outside Centre Culturel Islamique Québec on Sunday. (PASCAL RATTHE / LA PRESSE)
SAINTE-FOY, QC.—In the chaos of a catastrophe, it was the shadow that came into Mohamed Belkhadir’s view and the human instinct to save himself that landed the young man in jail.
According to his account of the ordeal, the 29-year-old was swept up in the panic of the murderous shooting at Centre Culturel Islamique Québec on Sunday night. Taken into police custody as one of two shooters police alleged were behind the killings, he spent a night in jail and pondered losing his good name, his dreams and his freedom, before terrorism investigators realized they had made a grievous error.
In fact, Belkhadir’s actions in the face of the carnage make him more hero than killer.
“I was trying to give first aid to my friend who was on the ground. I saw an image that was carrying a gun. I got scared. It was an image of a man who had a gun. I didn’t know it was a police officer. I thought it was a shooter who had come back,” the 29-year-old Université Laval student told reporters upon his return home from jail.
The bespectacled, bearded young man asked not to be photographed, but told his tale with humility and understanding for the terrorism investigators who held him in custody for more than 12 hours.
Belkhadir had skipped out just ahead of the several dozen others who had come to the mosque for evening prayers. He was clearing snow from the steps of the building and so engrossed in his task that he didn’t notice the armed man enter through the front doors.
When the gunfire erupted — lasting perhaps 15 or 20 seconds — instinct kicked in. He said he ran inside the building to call 9-1-1 and then he attended to an acquaintance who had been injured in the frenzy. Belkhadir lay a jacket over the man to try and keep him warm as they waited for help to arrive.
That’s when he saw the image come into his field of view.
“I got scared and I tried to flee,” he said, adding that he ran away from the mosque, toward the parking lot. “But when I heard that I had to drop to the ground, I understood that it was the police . . . When they saw me running they thought I was a suspect.”
The reports of two “suspects” — a pair believed to have acted as the shooters were fairly categorical from the police. And it was pretty categorical from an early point in the investigation. One of them, police said in their second media briefing late Sunday night, was arrested at the scene of the crime while the other was captured after fleeing in a vehicle. Information leaked out that one of the men was of Moroccan descent while another was a white Quebecer — leading journalists, terrorism experts and most of the thinking public scratching their heads.
Was it a case of a racist extremist group taking out their white hatred on the Muslim faithful, or the result of a schism between a local community and radicalized individuals?
A man is in custody Monday after a mass shooting at Centre Culturel Islamique Québec — which killed six men and wounded eight others. (IAN WILLMS)
Sure, Belkhadir was intimately familiar with the mosque — he went there regularly to pray.
“He was excellent. He’s a religious Muslim . . . He comes from a good family. I can’t understand how he could be a suspect,” said Bernard Blaise, owner of the building in which the young man rented his room.
The neighbours thought much the same thing, but they were forced to ponder the incongruencies of Belkhadir’s case with their hands in the air. The normally busy street in front of their home was completely blocked off to traffic. Armoured vehicles blocked the roads, preventing anyone from entering or leaving the area.
This was the scene at about 9 a.m. Monday morning. By about 11 a.m., the barriers were being pulled down, police units were being redeployed elsewhere in the city and journalists were left to descend on the bewildered residents of Belkhadir’s building.
This was just after Belkhadir’s name and that of the principal suspect, Alexandre Bissonnette, had leaked out in the media. It was also just before investigators chose to correct the official record in the case with two tweets, saying that one of the suspects was no longer considered as such — but was now being classified as a “witness” to the shooting.
It was touch-and-go for Belkhadir as he contemplated the cruel twist his life had just taken.
They investigators were nice to him, offering food and coffee and even loosening his handcuffs when he complained they were too tight. But at the same time he saw his future disappearing.
“I saw images. I thought I wouldn’t be able to work, that I would no longer be able to go to university, that I no longer would be able to do what I’ve always dreamed of,” he said upon arriving home Monday afternoon.
“I thought there had been a mistake and that it would be stuck to me.”
And despite the ordeal Belkhadir insists he would act the same way if it were to happen again.
“It’s a reflex. When there is someone who is injured it’s a reflex. You can’t leave people in need of help. Even someone who is sick. You can’t leave them on the ground. It’s an act of humanity for everyone — not just for Muslims.”