Bissonnette pleads not guilty to killing six muslim men
Alexandre Bissonnette the man accused shooting and killing six Muslims at a Quebec mosque last year pleaded not guilty to all charges on Monday, as preliminary motions in his trial began.
Bissonnette is a University of Laval student and faces 12 charges - six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder. Five of the attempted murder charges are related to people who were injured in the attack, while the sixth charge is meant to cover everyone else who was in the mosque at the time of the shooting.
Judge François Huot has requested that 600 prospective jurors be summoned - three times more than what's normally seen in Quebec trials, with many potential jurors expected to ask for an exemption, according to Radio-Canada.
Bissonnette is accused of killing Azzeddine Soufiane, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Abdelkrim Hassane, Mamadou Tanou Barry, and Ibrahima Barry, who were all at the mosque for evening prayers.