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Family demands answers in 2005 slaying

Officer shot man while investigating someone else

by Paul Cherry
Source: Montreal Gazette April 12, 2007

The family of a man killed by a Montreal police officer 16 months ago is calling on the public security minister to lift the veil of secrecy that still surrounds his death.

Mohammed-Anas Bennis, 25, was fatally shot by a Montreal police officer on Dec. 1, 2005, in Cote des Neiges. The officer was on Kent Ave., assisting Surete du Quebec investigators while they carried out a search warrant in a fraud investigation.

Bennis, who had no ties to the fraud investigation, had just left a nearby mosque when he was shot.

The only information made public so far is contained in a coroner's report released last year on Bennis's death. It cites a Montreal police report on the incident that states Bennis stabbed the officer in the neck and right leg "for no known motive."

Quebec City police investigated the shooting. They submitted a report to crown prosecutor James Rondeau, who informed the victim's father, Mohammed Bennis, no charges would be laid.

But Rondeau and the provincial government have refused to let Bennis read the police report. Yesterday, during a small protest in front of the Montreal courthouse, Bennis called on the provincial government to shed light on why his son was killed.

"It has been very frustrating," Bennis said of the bureaucratic runaround he has been put through.

Johanne Pelletier, a spokesperson for Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis, confirmed a request for access to the report was denied.

"Access to the police report was refused because we applied the law" that covers research on the cause and circumstances of a death, she said.

"A police report contains lots of personal information on people who are not directly involved in an event," Pelletier said, adding the government's decision was based on protecting such personal information.

She also said the same legislation does not allow the government to release edited documents.

That interpretation of the law makes it impossible for the public to know the circumstances behind any police shooting in Quebec, Bennis said. A letter he and two of his daughters delivered to Dupuis's office yesterday criticizes the government's explanation as "patently unreasonable."

Other people involved in the protest, like activist Jaggi Singh and Dan Philip, of the Black Coalition of Quebec, called for an independent inquiry into Bennis's death.

Also in attendance at the protest was Projet Montreal leader and city councillor Richard Bergeron. He criticized city councillor Claude Dauphin, the executive committee member responsible for public safety, for passing the buck.

"I've asked him questions twice (at council meetings) and he said that the answer has to come from the public security minister," Bergeron said.

"I'm not happy because that's too easy. The police officer who killed Mr. Bennis is (a member of) the Montreal police. We can't be satisfied with such an answer."