Accused city hall shooter had manifesto
The man accused of a shooting and firebombing attack at Edmonton City Hall lays out his wide-ranging problems with Canada and the world in a lengthy video manifesto published online before the incident.
Bezhani Sarvar, 28, is facing six charges for the attack in which a gunman entered the civic building through the parkade, fired a rifle and tossed a homemade Molotov cocktail before surrendering to an unarmed security guard. Nobody was injured in the attack.
Sarvar made his first court appearance on Thursday and Edmonton police and the RCMP’S Integrated National Security Enforcement Team continue to investigate the attack.
In the video titled “Rise up,” which has since been removed from Youtube, Sarvar touches on everything from weapons sales to eating healthy to Gaza to “wokeism.”
“Before I do my mission, I want you all to know that I am not a psychopath. I do not believe in bloodshed. I am not one of these monsters that hurt children, that hurt innocents,” Sarvar says.
“I’m just tired of seeing the tyranny and corruption taking over our society and our lives,” Sarvar says.
He says that “good, honest, God-fearing men and women” must become doctors, police, politicians and teachers, so that they can “rise up against this wokeism disease that is leading our generation into deception.”
“We need good men and women in all workforces to promote a pro-human life,” he says.
Sarvar also says people need to “rise up” against inflation and housing — both political crises in Canada that involve politicians at all levels of government.
The video also says people need to “rise up” to put a stop to “this genocide that’s going on in Gaza and throughout the world.”
“Anybody that is destabilizing other countries, hurting their community, should feel ashamed of themselves, and inshallah we will rise against you guys and we’ll put you on trial,” Sarvar says.
He also says there’s an immigration crisis, “but instead of hate and anger in our hearts, we must spread love.”
Finally, after a short monologue in a language other than English, Sarvar concludes: “We need to start filtering our water. We need to watch what we’re eating. We got to start eating healthy. Our officials need to start promoting healthy choices, healthy diet, exercises. They need to unite us all as one and we all got to start doing something positive for our society.”
“Inshallah, (Arabic for ‘God willing’) I will succeed with my mission. If I don’t succeed, I know somebody else will succeed for me.”
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), in a statement posted to X, denounced the attack and said it was motivated by “an alt-right agenda.” It did not mention the suspect’s comments about Gaza.