OTTAWA: A gunman who stormed Canada’s parliament after killing a soldier at a nearby war memorial was a petty criminal fighting a drug addiction and was estranged from his family, newspapers said on Friday.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, had moved across the country to westernmost British Columbia province to try to start over following a drug conviction in Montreal.

Disillusioned and addicted to crack cocaine, he was drawn to Islam a decade ago as he tried to turn his life around, Canadian media reported, but ended up driving Muslims away as he became increasingly radicalised.

The Globe & Mail newspaper said he would preach to non-Muslims one day and smoke crack cocaine the next.

He denounced a Vancouver-area mosque’s outreach attempts, complaining that too many infidels were visiting.

At one point in Vancouver, he tried to turn himself in for armed robbery but a police officer could not find any record of the alleged 10-year-old crime, so refused to arrest him, the Vancouver Sun reported.

Instead he was taken to hospital for observation, but psychiatrists quickly cleared him of any mental illness, so he was driven to a detoxification centre.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2014