Canada’s capital is a small sleepy city of less than a million. Its average annual murder rate is only 10. That’s a weekend in Chicago. But last year something strange happened to Ottawa’s murder rate.
It shot up to 24 homicides.
The last two murders were of Somali Muslim sisters Asma and Nasiba. Their murderer was their brother, Musab A-Noor. Despite the obvious history of Muslim honor killings of women, often carried out by brothers against their sisters, Musab was found “unfit” to stand trial. A director at the Somali Centre for Family Services insisted that Somali settlers in the city need more mental health funding.
Something certainly seems to be needed.
There were an estimated 66,000 Muslim settlers in the Ottawa – Gatineau metropolitan area. Despite forming some 5 percent of the population, they are startlingly overrepresented in Ottawa’s murders.
2016 in Ottawa ended with a Muslim murder in December and it began with a Muslim murder in January. Mohamed Najdi was killed by five other Muslim men. Mohamed had probably been shot in connection with the 2015 shooting of yet another Muslim man by an accused killer named Mohammad.
And we mustn’t confuse Mohamed with Mohammad.
The other Mohammad, a Kuwaiti immigrant, had been a suspect in multiple shootings the previous year and had spent two years in prison for sexual assault.
At January’s end, Marwan Arab, Ottawa’s second homicide victim, was shot, along with his cousin. Both men were members of the Algonquin Muslim Students Association. One of the Arab cousins allegedly had links to a terror suspect. The shooting led to more arrests of Muslims for plotting another attack.
In March, Christina Voelzing became Ottawa’s sixth murder victim. The 24-year-old Algonquin college student was murdered by her ex-boyfriend Behnam Yaali. Yaali, a drug smuggler, was represented by a lawyer who also specializes in refugee law.
Twenty-four hours after almost being allowed to walk free after pleading guilty to robbery, Idris Abdulgani was arrested for murdering Lonnie Leafloor, a 56-yearold former truck driver, by stabbing him in the back of the neck.
And that was Ottawa’s seventh murder.