A former Canadian university student has pleaded guilty to killing six men who were praying in a Quebec City mosque in January 2017, averting a trial in one of the country’s rare mass shootings. Alexandre Bissonnette told a Quebec City court that he wanted to change his previous plea of not guilty. The judge declared him guilty on six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder.

Six people were killed and another 18 wounded in the attack during evening prayers at the Quebec City Islamic cultural center, also known as the Grande Mosquée de Quebec. Bissonnette – at the time a student in the social sciences faculty at Laval University – also faced five charges of attempted murder. Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, initially described the shooting as a terrorist attack, although prosecutors did not charge Bissonnette with terrorism.(theguardian)…[+]