The suspect in the deadly rampage at a Quebec City mosque was known to local activists for his far-right views, according to news reports.
Alexandre Bissonnette, 27, walked into the Quebec Islamic Cultural Center on Sunday night during evening prayers and fired indiscriminately into the crowd of men, women and children. Six men were killed in the deadly attack, one of the worst to target Muslims in a Western country.
He faces six counts of first-degree murder and five attempted murder charges, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Quebec.
Bissonnette, a student at Laval University, lived in an apartment a few miles away from the mosque.
A Facebook group dedicated to welcoming refugees in Quebec City said Bissonnette was known online for making statements inspired by extreme right-wing French nationalists.
Bissonnette followed several profiles that espoused right-wing ideologies on his Facebook page, including that of Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader of France’s National Front, according to CNN’s Canadian partner network CBC.
He was a student at Laval University in Quebec City, according to the school. Neighbors tell the network he rented an apartment with his twin brother near the mosque. He was unknown to police and had not been on any watch lists, authorities said.
Bissonnette’s friends told The Globe and Mail newspaper that he became interested in politics after Le Pen visited Quebec City in March.
The paper quotes a friend, a fellow student at Laval University, who knew Bissonnette from childhood and was friends with him on Facebook.
Vincent Boissoneault told The Globe and Mail that the two frequently argued over politics when Bissonnette attacked refugees or expressed support for Le Pen or US President Donald Trump.
“I wrote him off as a xenophobe,” Boissoneault told the newspaper. “I didn’t even think of him as totally racist, but he was enthralled by a borderline racist nationalist movement.”
François Deschamps, an employment counselor who runs a refugee support Facebook page, told the paper he recognized Bissonnette’s photo from his frequent appearances online, including on the page he administers.
“He was someone who made frequent extreme comments in social media denigrating refugees and feminism,” Deschamps told The Globe and Mail. “It wasn’t outright hate, rather part of this new nationalist conservative identity movement that is more intolerant than hateful.”
Another Laval student, who asked not to be identified, told CNN he was in a political science course with Bissonnette.
“I was shocked when I saw his face on the media, because I recognized him immediately,” the student said.
Bissonnette “didn’t bring a notebook, just his computer. I think he was a gamer type,” the student said, adding that he seemed to have few friends.
“No one really knew him,” he said.
Bissonnette made a brief court appearance Monday. He will remain in custody until his next court appearance, set for February 21.
