Witnesses to highlight mosque shooter’s crimes

QUEBEC This week, a court is expected to hear details of how Alexandre Bissonnette planned and executed a mass murder at a Quebec City mosque last year.

Bissonnette pleaded guilty to six charges of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder two weeks ago. He could face life in prison without the possibility of parole for 150 years — a punishment his lawyers say would be the harshest sentence imposed in Canada since the last execution in 1962.

As evening prayers ended on Jan. 29, 2017, Bissonnette entered the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec, shooting 11 Muslim men, six of whom died, leaving 17 children fatherless. The sixth attempted murder verdict covered the 35 other people, including four children, who were in the mosque but were not physically harmed.

Sentencing arguments are to begin Wednesday before Quebec Superior Court Judge François Huot.

Prosecutor Thomas Jacques has said he will “ask for a sentence that reflects the magnitude of the crime committed and the consequences of the tragic events.”

Bissonnette, 28, pleaded guilty just days before his trial was to start. Since no trial was held, most of the evidence gathered in the investigation has not yet been revealed in court.

Jacques has said he will call several witnesses over about two weeks to ensure the judge has “a complete portrait” before deciding on a sentence. The witnesses will highlight “the circumstances of the crime and the consequences for the many victims.”

The sentencing phase is expected to fill some of the gaps in the story.

Here are some of the details that have emerged:

■ Bissonnette was “very anxious and unstable” before the attack and had recently been prescribed a drug used to treat depression, his mother, Manon Marchand, told investigators, according to police search warrants.

■ Bissonnette agreed with U.S.

President Donald Trump that “all immigration should be blocked,” his mother told police.

■ In the month leading up to the attack, Bissonnette spent time online researching Dylann Roof, who murdered nine black churchgoers in a South Carolina church in 2015; the massacre at Montreal’s École Polytechnique that left 14 women dead in 1989; and the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in which two teens killed 13 people in 1999.

■ In a three-minutes statement he read after his guilty plea, Bissonnette said he is not Islamophobic. He said he had been “haunted by fear, negative thoughts and a sort of horrible despair,” and that he had experienced “suicidal thoughts and had an obsession with death.”

Charles-Olivier Gosselin, Bissonnette’s lawyer, has said that during the sentencing hearing he will present evidence regarding his client’s mental state, the level of danger he poses and the chances he will re-offend.

Gosselin has also said he will contest the constitutionality of consecutive sentences.

The maximum sentence Bissonnette could face is 150 years — consecutive 25-year sentences for each of the six first-degree murder convictions. The Criminal Code was changed in 2011 to allow for consecutive sentences in multiple-murder cases, as opposed to concurrent sentences.

Gosselin said he will argue a sentence that exceeds a criminal’s lifespan is the equivalent of a “death sentence by incarceration” and is unconstitutional because the Charter of Rights protects Canadians from “any cruel and unusual punishment.”

He will recommend a life sentence with no possibility of parole before 25 years.

The first consecutive sentence imposed in Quebec occurred in February 2018, when Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau was sentenced to 35 years after being convicted of first-degree murder, seconddegree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

On Tuesday, a day before the sentencing arguments are to begin, Bissonnette is to return to court for the conclusion of a hearing on whether surveillance-camera videos from the mosque on the night of the attack should be made public.

A group of news media outlets, including the Montreal Gazette, is to present arguments in favour of their release.

The Crown is arguing the security video should be covered by a publication ban.

On Friday, Cécile Rousseau, a psychiatrist called to testify by the prosecution, advised against making the videos public. She said releasing them could retraumatize witnesses and the general population, encourage copycat crimes and be used by hateful groups for propaganda purposes.

Boufeldja Benabdallah, president of the mosque where the shooting occurred, also urged the judge to keep the videos under wraps, saying if they are aired “we will relive the atrocities of Jan. 29.”

Huot could impose a publication ban on the videos or decide to make parts or all of the videos public.