Mother of 'disturbed' Ottawa gunman 'sorry' for attack

The mother of the Ottawa gunman who rampaged through the
Canadian parliament on Wednesday has said she is crying for
the victims of her son's attack. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, an Islamic convert, shot and killed a Canadian soldier at a Second World War monument outside the country's parliament building on Wednesday.
The suspected jihadist, 32, then moved through the halls of
the federal government brandishing a rifle before he was killed
in a gunfight with armed police. His victim has been identied as Cpl Nathan Cirillo, a 25-year- old father who had been posted at the memorial for less than a month before he was killed. Two other people were wounded in the incident. Mr Zehaf-Bibeau's mother, Susan Bibeau, a senior immigration official in Canada, told news agencies on
Thursday that she did not know what to say to the families of those hurt in the attack.

"Can you ever explain something like this?" she said. "We are
sorry." "If I'm crying it's for the people, not for my son." Mrs Bideau and her husband had earlier released a statement expressing horror and sadness at what happened. "I am mad at my son," they said, explaining that he seemed lost "and did not fit in". "I, his mother, spoke with him last week over lunch, I had not seen him for over five years before that. So I have very little insight to offer." It has emerged that Mr Zehaf-Bibeau, born Michael Joseph Hall, had a criminal record and was barred from leaving Canada after being designated by authorities as a "high risk
traveller". He was arrested in 2011 in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC),
and pleaded guilty to robbery, and in 2004 was arrested in Quebec for drug-related offences. It is also believed that he had a tumultous relationship with Islamic community leaders in Vancouver and Burnaby, a nearby British Columbia town, where he had been a member
of the Masjid Al Salaam mosque. David Bathurst, a friend and fellow Muslim convert who met Mr Zehaf-Bebeau three years ago, said the attacker was asked to leave the mosque after displaying "disturbing"
character traits. “I think he must have been mentally ill,” Mr Bathurst told the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper, adding that he would
talk at length about the devil and demons. "We were having a conversation in a kitchen, and I don’t know how he worded it: He said the devil is after him," he said. "He seemed unstable." Mr Bathurst said he believed the gunman was radicalised on the internet.

Ottowa was placed on lockdown after reports of sporadic gunfire shortly after the murder of Cpl Cirillo led investigators to believe a second person could have been involved in the attack. Authorities have since said they are satisfied Mr Zehaf-Bibeau had acted alone and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper visited the site of the shooting to lay a wreath for the killed soldier on Thursday. During the ceremony, police arrested a man at gunpoint just steps from Mr Harper, underscoring tensions in the Canadian capital less than 24 hours after the attack. The prime minister and his wife were in the process of laying a wreath at the National War Memorial when police, shouting and with guns drawn, surrounded a man and ordered him to the ground. Ottawa Police said the man was arrested for "disturbing the crime scene" at the war memorial. It was not immediately clear what was the man's intent. "He crossed the tape. We told him not to. He didn't listen," said a police officer at the scene.
Fears of lone-wolf attacks are at an all-time high in the country after Mr Zehaf-Bibeau became the second suspected terrorist to kill a uniformed official in three days. On Monday another recent Muslim convert ran over two soldiers in a parking lot in Quebec, killing one and injuring
another before being shot by police.