Mosque attack ‘racist,’ not terrorism: expert
QUEBEC • A psychiatrist who interviewed Quebec mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette in prison says the crime was fuelled by racism but should not be considered terrorism given its “selfish” nature.
Gilles Chamberland interviewed Bissonnette for four hours Wednesday. He testified on behalf of the Crown at Bissonnette’s sentencing hearing Thursday.
Chamberland said the murders were clearly rooted in racism.
“Is this crime racist? Totally,” he said. “It’s clear it was based on something completely false he needed to believe to be able to use that community as a victim.”
But the crime was “too selfish” to be considered terrorism, in Chamberland’s opinion. Bissonnette didn’t commit it to push forward ideologies, he added.
Bissonnette, 28, has pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder for his attack on the Quebec City mosque on Jan. 29, 2017. Bissonnette faces a life sentence for the murders, with parole eligibility to be set between 25 and 150 years.
The defence argued its case, presenting evidence from three mental-health experts who concluded he could be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society eventually.
The Crown, for its part, pushed back. Prosecutor François Godin painted Bissonnette as a manipulative liar, saying he has adapted to different mental-health experts, telling each what he thought they wanted to hear.
This week, Crown prosecutor Thomas Jacques questioned experts on some of the troubling personality traits the court has heard about the convicted killer.
He quoted from a neuropsychological report, completed in July 2017, that described Bissonnette as immature, impulsive and narcissistic, with a poor capacity for empathy and a tendency to manipulate.
Addressing a psychiatrist who found Bissonnette’s capacity for empathy has improved since the murders, Justice François Huot said the description doesn’t fit what he’s noticed in court.
Bissonnette has been “almost completely impassive” in court through harrowing testimony from survivors and victims’ families, Huot pointed out, and showed emotion only when his own family was mentioned. “I’m having a bit of trouble, from the outside, seeing a progression when it comes to empathy,” Huot said.