Mohsen Belhaj, the brother of Mohamed Salah Belhaj, one of the men arbitrarily killed in Montreal this week, believes this grave event has shaken people’s sense of security and that a mistake has been made somewhere.
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Mohsen Belhaj opened up about his brother’s murder on Friday.
“Once a citizen has been killed here, in Montreal, or anywhere in Canada, we no longer feel safe moving about. We have to ask ourselves many questions and look for many answers,” said Mr Belhaj in an interview with TVA Nouvelles.
The young man Abdullah Shaikh, 26, who allegedly shot dead three strangers within 24 hours, was prosecuted by the Mental Disorders Review Commission (CETM). He was recently released by a court despite posing a “significant risk to public safety”.
Mohsen Belhaj judges that a mistake was made and that it led to the murder of his brother and the other two victims.
“I don’t want to say that someone did their job poorly but didn’t make the right decisions. It hurts. There is nothing you can do, but we can do a lot of things to avoid these tragedies that have cost Quebec its beauty of living together,” supports Mr. Belhaj.
He claims he will never forget the good times with his brother, who he was close to. The two men had just returned from Tunisia because their father had just died in their home country.
Mohsen Belhaj also thinks of his brother’s children who no longer have a father.
“How am I going to explain this to my kids? How should one answer children who ask: “Dad, where is he?” he says with difficulty.
“I had a very good relationship with him. All the good memories will stay with me,” he recalled.