By Canadian Press

Quebec to seek leave to appeal mosque shooter sentence at Supreme Court

Jan 15, 2021 | 8:36 AM

Quebec says it will seek leave to appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada a lower court decision that reduced the sentence of convicted mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette.

The province’s highest court in November reduced the killer’s life sentence from 40 years in prison before chance at parole, to 25 years.

In 2019, a Quebec Superior Court justice rewrote a 2011 law that granted courts the right to impose consecutive sentences in blocks of 25 years for multiple murders, declaring that the law amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Justice Francois Huot instead handed Bissonnette a sentence of 40 years.

The Court of Appeal agreed with Huot that consecutive sentencing violated the Charter, but decided the lower court judge erred in granting the killer a 40-year sentence and instead opted for 25 years.

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Bissonnette pleaded guilty in March 2018 to six counts of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder, following the 2017 mosque attack in Quebec City.

His murder victims were Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42; Abdelkrim Hassane, 41; Khaled Belkacemi, 60; Aboubaker Thabti, 44; Azzeddine Soufiane, 57; and Ibrahima Barry, 39. In addition to the men killed, five others were struck by bullets.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 15, 2021.

The Canadian Press