Canada's top court upholds sentencing for 2017 mosque shooter
Bissonnette, 32, pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder for the attack on members of a Quebec City mosque in 2017 in one of Canada's rare mass shootings
Canada's Supreme Court on Friday upheld a decision by a lower court to speed up the parole eligibility for the man convicted of gunning down six people in a mosque in 2017 and deemed a 2011 law that allowed lengthy parole sentencing as unconstitutional.
Canada's top court was adjudicating on the case challenging a 2020 decision by a Quebec court to lower Alexandre Bissonnette's parole eligibility to 25 years from the original sentence of 40 years of ineligibility.
Bissonnette, 32, pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder for the attack on members of a Quebec City mosque in 2017 in one of Canada's rare mass shootings.
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He was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 40 years behind bars in 2019 before a Quebec appeals court lowered that, describing the original sentence as "cruel and unusual."
At the time of the attack, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced the shooting as a terrorist act. The judge in the original trial said Bissonnette's actions - entering the mosque at the end of prayers and shooting congregants - was motivated by prejudice, particularly toward Muslim immigrants.
