The Canadian man who went on a deadly shooting spree Wednesday at Parliament Hill in Ottawa was a recent convert to Islam who had been exhibiting "erratic" behavior before he apparently snapped, according to a friend who knew the gunman.
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, has been identified as the suspected lone gunman who fatally shot a soldier, stormed into Parliament Hill and unleashed a barrage of bullets before he was shot and killed by a sergeant-at-arms.
Dave Bathurst, a friend of the slain gunman, told the Globe and Mail he was alarmed by the language his friend used during their talks.
"We were having a conversation in a kitchen, and I don't know how he worded it: He said the devil is after him," said Bathurst who last saw Zehaf-Bibeau six weeks ago at a Vancouver-area mosque. "I think he must have been mentally ill."
Zehaf-Bibeau, whose birth name was Michael Joseph Hall, also expressed a burning desire to travel to the Middle East when Bathurst last saw him. Zehaf-Bibeau said he wanted to study Islam and learn Arabic, but his friend was worried he might have been going for other reasons, the Globe and Mail reported.
No one ever found out what those reasons were because Zehaf-Bibeau was barred from leaving the country. Sources told the newspaper that federal officials who were trying to stop citizens from fighting jihads overseas refused to give Zehaf-Bibeau the proper travel documents.
If his extremists intentions were true, the future gunman would have done the same thing his father allegedly did. The father, reportedly named Belgasem Zahef, was quoted by the Washington Times in 2011 while he was fighting with the rebels against Colonel Muammar Qaddafi in Libya.
Zehaf-Bibeau, who was born in Quebec, was eventually kicked out of the Vancouver-area mosque for reasons relating to his "erratic" behavior, which his friend Bathurst did not elaborate on.
At one point, Zehaf-Bibeau was also arrested at the mosque after he allegedly called the police and confessed to a crime he committed years before.
"He was charged with robbing somebody and he pled guilty to uttering a threat," lawyer Brian Anderson, who defended Zehaf-Bibeau for the 2011 robbery, told the Globe and Mail. "It was something fairly minor and fairly bizarre."
Officials said on Thursday that the Parliament shooting does not appear to have any connection to a Monday incident where another suspected jihadist struck and killed a soldier in Quebec.
The suspect, Martin Couture-Rouleau, was killed by police after the incident.
