Psychiatric evaluation ordered for man with al-Qaida links charged with threatening attack in Montreal

A psychiatric evaluation has been ordered for a man previously convicted of supporting al-Qaida 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 was charged Thursday with uttering threats and appeared at the Montreal courthouse by videoconference.

He was back in court Friday, this time, in person and was represented by legal aid lawyer Vincent Petit. He was in handcuffs, walked slowly in the courtroom and was calm. He wore a long green and yellow t-shirt.

A psychiatric evaluation was ordered and will be done at the Pinel Institute. It’s expected to take 30 days to complete. It should be completed by July 7.

Federal crown prosecutor Samuel Monfette-Tessier has been assigned to the case.

“Both the crown and defence had reasonable grounds to believe that the accused should be assessed whether he is fit to stand trial and if he is criminally responsible,” said Monfette-Tessier. “Now the only question that remains is whether or not he is exempt of criminal responsibility. So he will be evaluated for the next 30 days at the Pinel Institute and on July 7 the file will come back to the docket to see whether or not the individual is exempt of criminal responsibility or not.”

The RCMP confirmed on Thursday that the same man pleaded guilty in Minnesota in 2009 to providing material support to the terrorist organization al-Qaida. 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. 

In an email statement, the Old Brewery Mission tells CityNews, “We salute the vigilance of the employees on duty at the Old Brewery Mission during its first visit to our services, who quickly requested the support of the SPVM. Our employees are trained to identify dangerous behaviour or speech, and we are in constant collaboration with the police when necessary. It should be noted that the individual had not previously used Old Brewery Mission services.”

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior manager and senior intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) says this is a case of “better safe than sorry.”

“He was probably frustrated or angry and mentioned that openly in front of everybody, which usually is not the trend with the terrorists,” he said. “Usually terrorists try to keep their plans secret rather than to reveal them openly this way.”

Juneau-Katsuya says Warsame in the past admitted to having been trained by al-Qaida 25 years ago.

“Even by his description and the information obtained from our American allies, he was not very good at it,” he said. “He was a poor Jihadist and even the other Jihadists did not recognize an efficient one in him.”

Juneau-Katsuya says that Warsame “must be what we call a person of interest by CSIS and the RCMP.”

He added that the fact that he was homeless may mean he went under the radar for some time.

“At this point, everything is still very much under investigation,” he said. “We need to understand exactly where he’s coming from, where he’s been for a little while, and was he really serious with his allegations?”

Warsame was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons, and was arrested by the RCMP on Wednesday afternoon.

According to his 2009 plea agreement, the Somali-born Canadian travelled to Afghanistan in 2000 to attend al-Qaida 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-Qaida 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.