Relative says she noticed “dramatic” changes in suspect’s behaviour,
Ayanle Hassan Ali was a “very charismatic, very caring person,” but in 2011 a relative began to notice “dramatic” changes. “He wasn’t as social, wasn’t as charismatic,” said his mother’s cousin, Mariam Adam, whom Ali called “Auntie.”
“He started to talk about crazy conspiracies, talking about the working class, the rich, the Illuminati, atheists, Jesus.”
Adam, who now lives in the United States, told the Star that Ali had been staying with her in Edmonton, after having put his engineering studies at the University of Calgary on hold.
Not long after she noticed the changes in his behaviour, Adam said Ali’s mother asked that he come back to stay with her in Toronto. She hasn’t been able to speak to him since.
Born in 1988 in Montreal to Somali immigrant parents, Ali is the only boy in a family of four, which includes an older sister who went to Oxford University and now works as an optometrist in London, Adam said.
The family moved to Toronto when Ali was 2 years old, and Adam said he graduated high school here.
“He was very smart for his age, kind of like an old soul,” she said. “We’d watch cartoons and he’d want to watch the Discovery Channel.”
She said Ali took his mother Maryam’s diagnosis of mental illness in 2001 particularly hard.
His mother was a big part of Ali’s life, she said, taking him to soccer practice and encouraging him in school. About a year after the diagnosis, Adam said Ali’s father left the family. “I don’t blame him, though,” she said, adding that life had become very difficult and Maryam had wanted him out of the house.
Mental illness is a taboo in practically any culture, but Abdifatah Warsame, a Somali community leader, said it can be especially tough in the Somali community.