MONTREAL (AP) – A prominent member of Montreal’s Muslim community says he does not believe that a man suspected in an alleged New York terrorist plot has any connection to Canada.
Salam Elmenyawi said that despite reports that Assem Hammoud studied at the city’s Concordia University, he led prayers at the university mosque during the period in question and does not recall Hammoud or anyone who looked like him.
“I don’t remember him at all,” Elmenyawi, of the Muslim Council of Montreal, said Sunday. “I was there at this time, leading prayers, and I don’t remember him at all.”
And he said he’s frustrated with U.S. efforts to blame Canada for terrorist activity south of the border.
Accused Mountie assailant ‘nice’
SPIRITWOOD, Saskatchewan (AP) – As RCMP continued a massive manhunt Sunday for a suspect in the shooting of two Saskatchewan Mounties, a friend of the accused described him as easygoing and “super nice.”
“He was a great friend,” Jeanette Franson, 30, told the Canadian Press. “I was a friend of his for quite a while.
“We stopped spending a lot of time together about five years ago, but he was super nice. I never had any problems with him.”
Officers were looking for Curtis Alfred Dagenais, 41, of Spiritwood, in a heavily wooded area thick with brush.
Man hopes to raise WWII plane
OTTAWA (AP) – An Air Canada pilot hopes American funding will help save his mission to recover a piece of Canada’s wartime heritage.
Karl Kjarsgaard has tried to secure federal government support to recover the last remaining Second World War-era Halifax bomber from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Scotland.
Although he had no luck with the previous Liberal government, Kjarsgaard is hoping an American twist to the Halifax’s story could open the doors to joint funding.
Heritage Canada has turned down a request to fund part of the expedition, but Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay’s office has taken up the cause as a possible cross-border partnership.
“We’re very interested in helping,” said press secretary Andre Lemay.
Before the United States entered the Second World War in 1941, thousands of Americans joined the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Most who served in the RCAF flew in the Halifax bomber.
More than 700 American names are etched into Canada’s Bomber Command Memorial in Nanton, Alberta Kjarsgaard wants the downed Halifax to be housed at Nanton’s adjacent air museum.
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AP-ES-07-09-06 1900EDT
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