ISIL SUPPORTER KILLED BY POLICE GUNFIRE: FAMILY
• An ISIL supporter who died during a confrontation with an RCMP tactical team outside his home in Strathroy, Ont., was killed by a police bullet, his family said Tuesday.
Wayne Driver said an autopsy had determined that his son Aaron had been shot two times and that one of the bullets had struck his liver and travelled to his heart. The other hit his spleen, he said.
The 24-year-old was allegedly in the final stages of preparing a terrorist attack on Aug. 10 when a police Emergency Response Team surrounded him. He detonated an explosive device and police opened fire.
Following the incident, the RCMP said it was unsure whether Driver had died as a result of his own bomb or police bullets but the father said the autopsy had put that question to rest.
“It was the police officer’s bullet that killed him,” the father told the National Post. “The bomb that exploded he could have walked away from with minor to severe injuries they said.”
Driver had been living in Ontario under the terms of a terrorism peace bond imposed by a judge in Manitoba.
A week after his son’s death, the father said he still believed police were not at fault. “They did what they had to do.” He said he wondered if it was a case of suicide-by-cop. “That’s what we’re kind of wondering,” he said.
His family contacted the London mosque this week about funeral protocol, a spokesperson said.
“We gave them the lay of the land,” said Nawaz Tahir. “We will help and support the family as much as we can.”
He says the organization is offering advice on planning the service according to Islamic traditions, which is expected to be held Thursday, which would have been Driver’s 25th birthday.
But Tahir says the ceremony will not be held at any Muslim institution in the city, nor will any local imam preside, acknowledging there were concerns over appearing to be associated with someone linked to terrorism.
In his first reaction to the alleged terror plot, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said a wider response to domestic terrorism would be rolled out by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale.
“All Canadians expect their government to do two things: to keep Canadians safe and to defend and uphold the values and rights that all Canadians hold dear,” he said during a stop in Bridgetown, N.S. “Getting that balance right isn’t always easy in the challenging situation we now live in, but it’s extremely important.”