The man suspected of killing a Canadian soldier and attacking the country’s Parliament building last week made a video of himself beforehand, evidence he was driven by ideological and political motives, police said on Sunday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement that they were conducting a detailed analysis of the video reportedly made by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and could not release it.
Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, allegedly stormed into the Parliament building with a rifle on Wednesday last week after shooting and killing Canadian Army Reserve Corporal Nathan Cirillo at a nearby monument to Canada’s war dead, police said. Zehaf-Bibeau was shot dead in the building.
The Canadian federal police force said on Sunday that it believed a knife carried by Zehaf-Bibeau was taken from his aunt’s property, but added it was still looking into the origin of the gun he used.
“It is an old and uncommon gun. We suspect that he could have similarly hidden the gun on the property, but our inquiries continue,” the statement said.
The RCMP also said the suspect had worked in Alberta’s oil fields and used the money he made to finance his activities in the days leading up to the attack. He had been living in an Ottawa homeless shelter just before the shooting.
The police were still investigating Zehaf-Bibeau’s interactions with numerous people in the days before the attack to find out whether these could have contributed to or facilitated his crime.
Security has been tighter since the shooting. Two days earlier, another man described by police as radicalized reportedly drove over two soldiers in Quebec with a car, killing one.
The suspected attacker, 25-year-old Martin Rouleau, was shot and killed by police.
The incidents, which police said were the work of Canadian citizens who were recent converts to Islam, came during the same week that Canada sent additional jet fighters to the Middle East to take part in airstrikes against Islamic State militants.
Canadian officials vowed to keep up their involvement in the military campaign against the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant despite the incidents and planned to reopen the Parliament building to the public yesterday, though they said they would begin locking the doors overnight.
In a letter to Canadian news agency Postmedia, Zehaf-Bibeau’s mother denied an RCMP statement that she had told them her son had intended to travel to Syria.
Her son, who came to Ottawa from Vancouver seeking a passport, had wanted to travel to Saudi Arabia to study the Koran, Susan Bibeau said in the letter.
The nation also prepared for two funerals, with Cirillo to be laid to rest in his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, today. A funeral for 53-year-old Canadian Armed Forces Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent was set for Saturday in Quebec.
On Sunday, about 100 police, firefighters and other emergency workers held a disaster-response drill in downtown Toronto.
The drill had been long planned and was not a reaction to the twin attacks, though some acknowledged it took on a more urgent tone in the wake of the incidents.
“We had to be very specific with our strategic briefing after what happened in Ottawa,” Toronto Police Department Staff Sergeant Daniel Martin said.
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