MONTREAL – An ex-neighbour recalls confronting one of the suspected terrorists charged in a plot to derail a passenger train because, he says, he was being kept awake at all hours of the night by loud prayers.
This is one of many problems Chiheb Esseghaier allegedly had with the people who shared the same Montreal apartment building until a few months ago.
Esseghaier is one of two men arrested by the RCMP this week for an alleged plan to attack a Via passenger train.
The suspect’s former next-door neighbour in the thin-walled, low-rent building said he knocked on Esseghaier’s door on several occasions in the middle of the night to ask him to stop making so much noise.
Michel, who declined to give his family name, said he told Esseghaier to feel free to continue his praying as long as he did so quietly.
“He didn’t like me very much because I told him to shut up at night,” Michel said Thursday in front of the building, in a blue-collar sector of the city’s Rosemont district.
“(Esseghaier) said, ‘I will do my prayers anyway.’ ”
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Michel said he respects a person’s right to practice their religion, but when Esseghaier continued his middle-of-the-night chants he complained to the superintendent.
Sound travels so freely in the three-storey, brick building that a person standing in a corridor can clearly hear what tenants are watching on TV inside their apartments.
Tenants in the building allege that Esseghaier exhibited other strange behaviour.
Michel recalled that another neighbour told him they smelled something burning inside Esseghaier’s unit and they discovered he was trying to dry a shirt over the elements on his stove.
Montreal’s La Presse newspaper reported that the Tunisian man was eventually evicted in December. Another man in the building told The Canadian Press that he simply had to leave because he couldn’t afford the rent, which one neighbour pegged at about $500 a month.
La Presse reported that Esseghaier was also caught attempting to cook on the flames of his barbecue in his living room because he said it was too windy outside.
Michel said Esseghaier shared the second-floor studio unit with another man, who moved out a couple of months before the suspect.
He said the men, who didn’t know each other before moving in together, argued frequently.
“He told me, ‘I can no longer stand living with this guy, I’m going to move in with friends,’ ” Michel said of Esseghaier’s former roommate.
Michel said the roommate, a taxi driver who worked nights, was very friendly.
The cabbie, he added, told him Esseghaier dragged an old mattress that had been left for garbage collection into the apartment to use as a bed.
Michel said he helped clean up the unit after Esseghaier moved out. The mattress and the apartment, he said, were full of bugs.
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Other locals remember seeing Esseghaier in the area, but they said he kept a low profile.
A man who lives on the other side of Esseghaier’s Apartment 23 said he never uttered more than a neighbourly “hello” to the terror suspect. He said he never heard any noise in Esseghaier’s unit.
A woman, who works at a nearby daycare, said she remembers seeing Esseghaier on the street, but that she never noticed anything out of the ordinary about him.
Esseghaier, who does not hold Canadian citizenship, is a biotechnology expert who was performing doctoral studies in nanosensors at a Montreal-area university.
The Tunisian Embassy in Ottawa issued a statement saying Esseghaier arrived in Canada in August 2008 and that he is a “brilliant PhD student.” The Tunisian diplomatic officials also indicated they want to know more about the circumstances of his arrest.
“The embassy has requested meeting with Canadian relevant authorities to seek clarification on his arrest and his involvement in this case,” read the statement.
Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, face charges in what the RCMP says was a terrorist plot to attack a passenger train. Police allege the plan was guided by al-Qaida in Iran.
On Wednesday, Esseghaier asked to address a Toronto courtroom after the five terrorism charges against him were read out.
He suggested in court that he doesn’t recognize the authority of the Criminal Code because it is “not a holy book.”
News coverage of their arrests circled the globe. Michel said he recognized Esseghaier when he saw him on TV.
“It’s very surprising,” he said.
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