Mosque shooter should serve 150 years: Crown

The man who gunned down six Muslim men in a Quebec City mosque deserves to spend 150 years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said Tuesday as he recommended Alexandre Bissonnette receive the longest sentence in Canadian history.

Bissonnette’s crimes are “despicable, repugnant ... and equate to terrorism,” said prosecutor Thomas Jacques at the killer’s sentencing hearing.

Earlier this year, Bissonnette, 28, pleaded guilty to six charges of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder after he walked into a mosque in the provincial capital on Jan. 29, 2017, and opened fire.

A single first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Francois Huot could multiply Bissonnette’s sentence by the number of people he killed and therefore order the shooter serve 150 years in prison before he becomes eligible for parole — meaning he would die in custody.

Bissonnette’s lawyer, Charles-Olivier Gosselin, has portrayed his client as an anxious and fragile man and suggested he be eligible for parole after 25 years.

Jacques told the judge Bissonnette deserves a sentence that is proportionate with the “carnage” he inflicted on the city’s Muslim community, and on the rest of the country.

Bissonnette began considering mass killing in 2015, Jacques said.

A year later, he chose his target, Quebec City’s mosque, the prosecutor continued.

“It’s not a trivial location,” he said. “It’s a place of worship, a saintly place, a sacred place.”

Not only was the killing premeditated, but the shooter was determined, acted methodically and with cruelty, Jacques said.