Man with ties to al-Qaeda charged with threatening attack in Montreal
51-year-old appeared at the Montreal courthouse again Friday morning
A man previously convicted of supporting al-Qaeda has been charged after allegedly threatening an attack in Montreal.
Mohamed Abdullah Warsame, 51, allegedly told an employee at a homeless shelter in Montreal that he wanted to build bombs to detonate on public transit.
He has been charged with uttering threats and appeared at the Montreal courthouse Thursday morning by videoconference.
The RCMP confirmed that the same man pleaded guilty in Minnesota in 2009 to providing material support to the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. He was deported to Canada in 2010 and had no fixed address at the time of the alleged incident.
The Old Mission Brewery, which runs several homeless shelters in Montreal, contacted Montreal police after Warsame allegedly said on May 27 that he wanted to carry out an attack that would kill a large number of people.
Warsame was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons and was arrested by the RCMP on Wednesday afternoon. He appeared again in court Friday morning.
Crown prosecutor Samuel Monfette-Tessier told reporters on Friday his team had raised concerns about Warsame's criminal responsibility. He said Warsame had met with a psychosocial emergency team that concluded he was fit to stand trial.
Monfette-Tessier added that the man will undergo one more evaluation at the Philippe-Pinel Institute, a psychiatric hospital in Montreal, and will be back in court on July 7 to obtain the results of that assessment.
According to his 2009 plea agreement, the Somali-born Canadian travelled to Afghanistan in 2000 to attend al-Qaeda training camps, where he met the organization's founder, Osama bin Laden. He later sent money to one of his training camp commanders.
Warsame then relocated to Minneapolis, where he continued to provide information to al-Qaeda associates throughout 2002 and 2003. He was arrested in December 2003.
In 2009, Warsame was sentenced to 92 months in federal prison with credit for time served. He was deported to Canada in October 2010.
With files from Radio-Canada