MONTREAL – Lawyers for the Montreal Police Brotherhood will be back in court Tuesday to quash a coroner’s inquiry into the fatal shooting of a Muslim man in a central Montreal neighbourhood by a police officer in December 2005.
Despite renewed calls from a coalition that an inquiry is needed to answer lingering questions about the death of Mohamed Anas Bennis, the brotherhood is not backing down.
Representing 4,500 employed in the Montreal police force, the brotherhood says the inquiry, ordered by Quebec’s chief coroner in June 2008, is "useless" and smacks of "procedural overzealousness."
Four investigations – by a Crown prosecutor, the Quebec Police Ethics Commission, Police Ethics Committee chairperson (on appeal) and a judge who examined a private criminal complaint – concluded that Const. Yannick Bernier used his right to legitimate defence when he fired at Bennis, brotherhood spokesman Martin Desrochers said in an e-mail.
Salam Elmenyawi, chairman of the Muslim Council of Montreal, joined other community spokespersons at a news conference Monday in challenging the brotherhood’s "shameful attitude."
"An innocent man lost his life – why do they resist an inquiry in each and every case when someone is killed in a police operation?" he said. "There are so many questions that have not been answered."
Bennis, dressed in the garb of a religious Muslim, was returning from a mosque when he was shot twice as Montreal police were helping provincial police execute a search warrant in the Cote-des-Neiges neighbourhood. Bennis was not a suspect.
It appears from videos that Bernier "collided" with Bennis, allegedly armed with a knife. A second officer said Bennis ignored repeated warnings to drop his knife when Bernier fired the fatal shots.
Among unanswered questions is why Quebec’s Public Security Department has refused to release the initial police report into the shooting.
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