Homicides in Montreal: Last-minute decision put father of two in the path of the killer

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Before leaving for work on Tuesday night, Mohamed Salah Belhaj kissed his two young children goodnight and decided he didn’t feel like taking his car to work.

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The 48-year-old father opted to take the bus, a decision that would put him in the path of a complete stranger who police suspect wanted to kill for no apparent reason.

That fateful decision made Belhaj one of three men shot to death in Montreal and Laval this week. The suspect in all three homicides, 26-year-old Abdulla Shaikh, was shot to death Thursday morning at a motel in the St-Laurent district as a Montreal police SWAT team attempted to arrest him.

Shaikh died keeping any possible explanation for why he killed Belhaj and two other victims, André Lemieux, 64, and Alexis Lévis-Crevier, 22, to himself. The Sûreté du Québec has said it believes Shaikh chose his victims at random.

Lévis-Crevier, who had just started construction work, was fatally shot in Laval on Wednesday night.

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Lemieux, the father of professional boxer David Lemieux, was killed near his apartment on Jules-Poitras Blvd. in the St-Laurent district an hour before Belhaj was shot.

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mohsen Belhaj, Mohamed Salah’s brother, told the Montreal Gazette on Friday as he continued to wrestle with the choice of whether his brother should be buried in Montreal, to be close by. his widow and her children, or Tunis, the place of his birth and where his mother lives. He said his brother’s children, ages six and four, have so far only been told that his father traveled to Tunisia and will return.

His brother was killed as they both mourned the loss of their father, who died on July 29.

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Belhaj said he and his sister-in-law have been able to piece together some of his brother’s final moments before he was shot Tuesday night.

“Around a quarter to 11 (pm), he grabbed his lunch box and kissed his children. She told them that she was getting too late to get up. They went to sleep and he went to his work,” Belhaj said. “He was ready to take his car but he decided, ‘You know what? I don’t feel like taking the car. I’m just going to take the bus. It will be much easier for me. I don’t feel like driving.’”

Minutes after leaving his home in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville district, Belhaj was shot at an intersection near St-Benoit Park around 10:50 p.m. He never made it to his job at Albert Prevost Hospital, an institution that treats to patients with mental health problems. problems.

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Belhaj said her brother was part of the general staff at the hospital and was appreciated by his co-workers.

“The guy was a simple man. He worked for his children. He had no problem. Everyone is in shock. All the medical staff who worked with him came to see me (Thursday) and they all said that Salah was one of the best on the staff. They asked, ‘How could this happen to him?’” Belhaj said.

Shaikh had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and charged with mischief following a series of bizarre incidents at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International and Mirabel airports over the course of several days during July 2018.

He was found not to be criminally responsible for his actions and was ordered to live with his parents while he received treatment. But months later, his family became so concerned about Shaikh’s behavior that they asked him to be placed in an institution for people with mental health problems.

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He was released in early January 2021, and the Mental Problems Examination Commission, an administrative court, reviewed its decision on March 29 this year. A psychiatrist told the court that Shaikh “still poses a significant risk to public safety due to his mental state.” But the psychiatrist also recommended that Shaikh be able to reside outside the hospital as long as he continues to meet the conditions imposed on him in January 2021.

On Friday, Belhaj said he has a hard time understanding how a man who posed a “significant risk to public safety” could also be a free man.

“This is the problem of this city. People who do anything to innocent people, whatever the story, are put back on the streets. He had mental problems and the file was closed,” Belhaj said. “The government, or its institutions, knew it was a risk. They knew the guy had a serious problem. Why didn’t we put him under some kind of control so we would know what he’s doing?

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“I mean, he was mentally ill and he was between us. I’m not just speaking on behalf of my brother. Logically, he could have happened to any of us. He can happen to you, you go to work and they choose you like that. I understand his right to live (as a free person) but if he represented a risk to our security, we can do things much better than we are doing now as a society. As a father of three children, do you think I feel safe sending one of them to get milk?

Belhaj also said that he feels sympathy for Shaihk’s family.

“Behind him there is a father and a mother,” he said. “They also lost a son.”

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