The RCMP has identified a second Canadian from among the bodies of suspected terrorists killed in an Algerian gas plant attack.
The man’s remains were identified more than two months after al Qaeda-linked militants stormed the remote plant in January.
No other information was given.
Earlier this week, the RCMP said another Canadian terror suspect was among those killed during the four-day siege.
“It was bad enough to have one Canadian involved in this…now a second. It’s really not good for our reputation around the world and not what we want to see,” Anthony Seaboyer, a security policy expert and professor at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont., told CTV News Channel Saturday night.
Shortly after the attack, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal announced that two Canadians were among the militants, but the Canadian government could not immediately confirm the claim.
RCMP investigators were sent to Algeria to determine whether any of the alleged terrorists were carrying authentic Canadian identification.
Police have not released the names of the dead Canadians, citing an ongoing investigation.
But CTV News learned last week that the first suspect had a criminal record and lived in Toronto.
He was not carrying a Canadian passport or any other form of documentation, and his body was identified through his fingerprints.
Seaboyer said there are many unanswered questions about the Canadians’ alleged involvement in the terrorist attack.
“Who did they work for? Where did they train?”
Seaboyer also wondered whether anything could have been done to prevent the attack in the Sahara Desert.
At least 38 hostages and 29 militants were killed in the gas plant siege. Sellal said other militants involved came from Egypt, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Tunisia.
The man who claimed responsibility for the attack, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was reportedly killed in a military strike in northern Mali.
With files from The Canadian Press
