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Quebec coroner to probe death of Montreal man

Source: CBC News June 3 2008

An inquiry will be held into the death of a Montreal man shot to death by police while leaving a mosque in 2005, the office of Quebec's chief coroner said Tuesday.

Mohamed Anas Bennis, 25, was shot twice in December 2005 by a Montreal officer helping provincial police carry out a search warrant in a fraud investigation in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district.

Bennis wasn't a suspect in the investigation and police said at the time he stabbed the officer in the neck and leg for "no known motive."

Quebec city police investigated the shooting, but the Public Security Ministry has steadfastly refused to make the report public.

The Bennis family, which has been pushing for a public inquiry ever since, welcomed the news on Tuesday.

"We are very happy," Najlaa Bennis, sister of the slain man, told CBC News.

"The official version was never clear and raised several questions about the number of bullets and the angle of the bullets," she said.

Bennis said her family never fully believed the police version of what happened, and while it will be difficult to relive the details of her brother's death, her family needs to do that now, whatever the outcome.

The inquiry, she said, will determine whether the police response "was exaggerated or not, appropriate or not — those kinds of questions."
Lawyer predicts report will be tabled

Bennis said her family — and the province — owe it to her brother to determine exactly what happened.

A spokesperson for the Public Security Ministry said it would co-operate with the inquiry, but refused to comment about whether the police report would be made public.

Bennis family lawyer Alain Arsenault predicted the parameters of the inquiry would force the department to table the report.

"In ambiguous circumstances we have to make an evaluation of what happened," Arsenault said. "They say it was a legitimate defence. I don't have a problem with that, but can they prove it?"

No officers were ever charged in the death.