Mosque killer wanted ‘grandiose act’ to stop people mocking him: psychologist

The man who murdered six Muslim men in a Quebec City mosque in January 2017 had been suffering with mental illness for years and wanted to kill, a psychologist who evaluated the gunman said in court Monday.

Alexandre Bissonnette initially wanted to shoot people in a shopping centre but decided against that attack and turned his attention to the mosque, Marc-andre Lamontagne said during sentencing arguments.

Lamontagne, an expert in evaluating people’s level of dangerousness and their risk of repeat offending, met Bissonnette twice in early April for a total of seven hours, at the request of the killer’s defence team.

Bissonnette, 28, pleaded guilty in March to six charges of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder related to the deadly mosque shooting.

His lawyers began presenting their case Monday in order to obtain the shortest possible sentence for their client.

Lamontagne said Bissonnette harboured violent and hostile thoughts for years — sentiments that were initially directed toward his peers at school who bullied him, as well as toward former teachers.

His hostility eventually became more generalized, Lamontagne said.

The psychologist said Bissonnette told him that six weeks before the mosque shooting, he considered murdering people in a Quebec City shopping centre.

He travelled with his guns as far as the mall parking lot before abandoning the idea.

Bissonnette didn’t want to kill just anyone, said Lamontagne. He said Bissonnette chose the mosque because “he convinced himself that if there was at least one religious extremist inside,’’ it would be worth it to murder people because it would save lives.

The idea was to seek vengeance from those who had persecuted him, but also to commit a “grandiose act’’ so no one would laugh at him after he was dead, Lamontagne added.