A 32-year-old man is facing new charges following an investigation by the Montreal police hate crime squad into an alleged assault last weekend at a downtown mosque.
However, worshippers of the Al-Omah Al-Islamiah Mosque are concerned that police have not yet classified the incident as a hate crime.
Cory Anderson is now facing charges of assault with a weapon and forcible confinement after he was arrested for a second time on Wednesday, police announced in a news release. The accused was arrested shortly after the April 9 incident and initially charged with mischief, according to police.
Anderson appeared in court Wednesday on the new counts and was remanded into custody pending his next appearance on Thursday.
In an interview with CTV News on Monday, one member of the mosque said the alleged perpetrator came to the building last Sunday with a shovel around 5 a.m. while people were praying and smashed the glass door with a concrete block.
Mohamad Jundi said that a young member of the mosque was verbally assaulted and threatened by the man outside the building on Saint-Dominique Street. Jundi added that the suspect threw the shovel on the ground, chased the young man and tried to hit him with another object.
“He entered the main hall and started screaming,” he said. “He was screaming in French, but we didn’t get what he was screaming about.”
‘THIS ACT OF AGGRESSION WAS NOT RANDOM’
Jundi is the head of security at the mosque, which is monitored by exterior surveillance cameras. The incident, which was partially captured on surveillance video, has shaken people who attend the mosque as they observe the holy month of Ramadan.
The Montreal hate crime unit led the investigation into the event, but a spokesperson said investigators have not yet been able to determine the motive of the accused.
“Therefore, it is not possible to confirm or deny whether this was a hate crime,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Jundi, who is also a community outreach member of the Montreal-based Canadian Muslim Forum, said Wednesday he welcomed the laying of additional charges by police, but said in his eyes, “It was clear for me it was a hate crime.”
“We always maintain that this act of aggression was not random, but rather an intentional assault that bears signs of hatred and Islamophobia in addition to its criminal dimension,” he told CTV News.
“This is a [place of worship] and nobody comes there just to assault the young man, who was assaulted. The way he entered the mosque — because he saw two people inside, he followed them. That comes into my mind, it’s clearly a violent incident, Islamophobia and hatred.”
The young man who was chased by the alleged attacker was “terrified” by the incident, which has left other worshippers feeling unsafe, Jundi added.
“I would like to remind everyone that such acts of violence or hatred have no place in our society,” he said, “and that we must all work together to ensure that our communities remain safe, inclusive and welcoming for all.”
Three days before the Montreal mosque incident, York Regional Police said a man drove directly at one of the worshippers of a mosque in Markham, Ont., yelling threats and religious slurs, and driving dangerously in the parking lot before leaving.
Police arrested a 28-year-old male suspect in connection with what they alleged was a “hate-motivated incident” and charged him with uttering threats, assault with a weapon, and dangerous driving.
SOURCE: CTVNEWS