A Toronto man has been charged with uttering threats and mischief after an Ottawa building housing the Prime Minister's Office was evacuated and downtown streets were closed because of a suspicious package yesterday.
A suspect was arrested Wednesday morning after a package the size of a briefcase was reported inside the Langevin Block, an office building at 80 Wellington St., near Metcalfe Street, at about 11 a.m. ET.
Wellington Street was closed to traffic in both directions from O'Connor to Elgin streets while members of a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives (CBRNE) team investigated the package.
By 2 p.m., police had discovered that the package was not a threat.
The contents of the package will not be disclosed, the RCMP said.
The Langevin building is across the street from Parliament Hill and houses the Privy Council offices and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office.
Mohamoud Jimale, 45, of Toronto, has been charged with one count each of uttering threats and mischief. He was scheduled to appear in an Ottawa courtroom this morning.If the package wasn't a threat, why won't the RCMP disclose its contents? And exactly what was the nature of Mahmoud's unspecified spoken "threats"?
Update: Suns News fills in one of the blanks:
Langevin Block was evacuated Wednesday morning after a man allegedly entered the building with a suspicious package, uttered threats and began praying in a foreign language, according to reports."A foreign language," eh? You don't think he was saying/"praying" something along the lines of--oh, shot in the dark here--"Allahu Akbar," do you? Nah, surely someone in the RCMP would let us know if that were the case.
Update: Apparently, he's Somali.
Update: The plot thickens:
The charges gave his home address as 2100 Weston Rd., which is the site of the Humberview Housing Co-op. A woman there, who did not want to be identified, said Mr. Jimale lived on welfare and occupied a three-bedroom unit with his wife. She said on Tuesday he had become angry when the co-op asked him to provide proof that his seven children still lived in Canada rather than in Somalia.Yeah, you can see why that would prompt him to hightail it to Ottawa with a "suspicious" package for the Prime Minister. Isn't that the typical reaction when welfare officials make such a request?
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