Toronto stabbings: suspect said Allah told him to do it, say police

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Toronto police chief Mark Saunders at a news conference saying the chief suspect in the stabbing of two soldiers is 27-year-old Canadian Ayanle Hassan Ali. 

A Canadian man accused of stabbing two soldiers at a military recruitment centre in Toronto was heard saying “Allah told me to come here and kill people”

during the incident, police said on Tuesday, but so far there is no indication he carried out the attack with the involvement of anyone else or any organisation.

The man walked into the centre on Monday afternoon wielding a large knife, said Chief Mark Saunders of the Toronto police. He began striking a uniformed Canadian Forces member who was stationed near the entrance and slashed his right arm. The suspect then tried unsuccessfully to slash a female soldier.

A group of six to eight soldiers managed to subdue the suspect until police arrived. Two military personnel were taken to the hospital with minor injuries and were later released.

Montreal-born Ayanle Hassan Ali, 27, faces nine charges, including attempted murder and aggravated assault. After a brief court appearance on Tuesday, his lawyer highlighted the seriousness of the charges. “It’s a very, very difficult situation he finds himself in,” said David Burke. “He just seems very scared right now and very unhappy to be in the situation he finds himself in right now.”

Burke refused to address whether his client was remorseful for his actions, instead urging the public to refrain from jumping to conclusions. “This is a very serious incident, nobody can deny that ... but at the end of the day I think it does remain to be seen what kind of a person we are dealing with,” he said. Ali will remain in custody until his next court appearance on Friday.

Police said they are continuing to investigate whether terrorism was a possible motive for the attack, pointing to the words uttered by the suspect during the incident. “While at the scene, the accused stated that ‘Allah told me to do this, Allah told me to come here and kill people’,” said Saunders.

The probe has been widened to include the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada’s intelligence services, but to date nothing has been found to indicate that the accused was working with others to carry out the attack. “It will take some time to have a complete picture,” said Saunders. Ali, who has lived in Toronto since 2011 and was not known to police, refused to answer questions from police at the scene.

Saunders also cautioned against drawing conclusions from the details that have emerged so far about the case. “One of the things I want to be very careful of, when it comes to the national security piece, [is] that we don’t go do that Islamophobia nonsense,” said Saunders. “I don’t want this categorising a large group of people; that will be very unfair and very inaccurate.”

On Tuesday, some of Canada’s million-strong Muslim community condemned what they called a hateful act of violence. “We are deeply troubled to hear about the attack on our Canadian Armed Forces,” said Lal Khan Malik, of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Canada in a statement. “It is appalling and utterly disgraceful that anyone would carry out such an attack in God’s name.”

Authorities in Canada have been on heightened alert since autumn 2014, when a harrowing attack brought the country’s capital city of Ottawa to a standstill. A gunman killed a Canadian soldier standing guard at the war memorial, then rushed to parliament, opening fire before being shot dead. In a video made prior to the attack, the gunman said his actions were in retaliation for Canada’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and against Islamic State.

The attack came just two days after a man, described by authorities as an Isis-inspired attacker, ran over two soldiers in the parking lot of a strip mall in Québec, killing one and injuring another before being fatally shot by police. In both cases, investigators said the attackers had become radicalised.