Amanda Korody, one of the suspects in the Canada Day bombing attempt, could have been led astray by the other suspect, John Nuttall, according to report. They were described as recovering drug addicts.
Korody and Nuttall are accused of planting pressure cooker bombs during Canada Day celebrations in Victoria, British Columbia. The CBC reported that Canadian officials said the two were “inspired by al-Qaeda ideology.”
The pressure cooker bombs were said to have had nuts, nails, washers, and bolts inside.
A high school friend of Korody, who is believed to be in her late 20s, said she was an impressionable person and could have been swayed by Nuttall.
And a friend of Nuttall, Daryl Nelson, told the CBC that he befriended some “Muslim brothers.”
“I don’t know who these ‘Muslim brothers’ were,” he told the broadcaster. “They were coming by his house every other day. One of them employed him at a furniture store apparently, got him delivering packages.”
Nelson said that several men would visit his apartment on a regular basis.
“He didn’t have the money, didn’t have the transportation. He didn’t have the means. Where did he get the knowledge and the mentality to do this?” Nelson said.
And 36-year-old Jeffrey Rossetto told the broadcaster that he knew Korody as she was coming out of high school.
“The Amanda that I knew and the Amanda that I met in St. Catharines back in 2000, 2001 is a bright, intelligent, creative, intuitive, gentle and kind young woman who had a really vast interest in art and film and culture and music,” Rossetto told CBC.
He added: “She expressed about five years ago that she was kind of interested in converting to Islam. But I need to make something clear about that. Before she was doing that she was trying to be in a band.”
Nuttall and Korody were residents of a basement apartment outside of Vancouver, reported the Vancouver Sun.
“It is shocking. We never suspected this,” landlady Shanti Thaman told the paper. “Someone is using them.”
She said the two were recovering drug addicts who got methadone deliveries from a pharmacy.
“If you saw them, they looked like they are not 100-per-cent OK,” Thaman added. “Someone must be brainwashing them.”
The two would visit a local mosque and also listen to radical Islamist tapes in their apartment.
The Sun reported that Korody started wearing a burka after converting to Islam two years ago.
