The three men, deemed suspicious for taking pictures at the entrances and exits of the mall, were later identified as innocent travellers from the United Kingdom who are in Vancouver for a medical treatment. The men take photos so they can get a better, close-up look at their surroundings. Much like a similar instance in Toronto late a year ago involving suspicious men snapping photos at Union Station, police just wanted to talk to them. The images quickly went viral.
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Mohammed Sharaz was sipping tea Friday morning when he scrolled across a news report identifying him, his son and a friend as the targets of a police search in Vancouver. “I said: ‘You two were taking pictures and they think you’re up to no good!’ I didn’t even drink my tea, I took one sip and just chucked it in the sink”. In fact, he praises them, saying that “what the police did, I’m perfectly fine with that”. Police described the men as “Middle-Eastern looking” at a press conference held Friday.
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer has said the internal memo, which labelled the men “suspicious” and included the surveillance photos, was never meant to be public.
Friday afternoon, VDP confirmed that all three men were very cooperative with investigators and had a very logical explanation for their behaviour.
Instead, Sharaz says he blames the media organizations at the centre of the mishap.
“We’re a city that takes care of people”, he said.
“We do not put that information out to the general public unless we think there’s an imminent threat or public safety risk”.
Vancity Buzz editor in chief Farhan Mohamed said last week that the story was published because it was in the public interest.
“The investigation has conclusively determined that their actions were completely innocent”, Montague said. I cannot take these two with me anywhere because anything can happen.
“We weren’t planning on going public with it at this point because we didn’t feel it was something serious enough to go public with at this point”, he said.
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Sharaz’s son Salahuddin Sharaz suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease that causes severe vision impairment. “There’s a very small number of terrorists that have given Muslims a bad name”. He and family friend Mohammed Kareem, 34, have been receiving treatment from Dr. Weidong Yu at the Wellspring Clinic for Holistic Medicine.
