The violent death of Moroccan student Achraf Thimoumi at Stoneham has shocked his family and the Aviron Technical Institute in Montreal, where he studied.
• Also read: Stoneham’s murder victim is a foreigner
Mr Thimoumi, 20, was found dead in a vehicle on Chemin des Familles on Monday afternoon. Two days after the sad discovery, his family still cannot explain this tragic end.
“According to one of his friends and his cousin, he was a very reserved, very shy guy who didn’t have many friends,” said Rachid Najahi, a journalist and member of Montreal’s Moroccan community who is in contact with the family of the deceased.
“Everyone is amazed at what happened and cannot understand how a reticent 20-year-old student was killed,” he said.
According to him, Achraf Thimoumi immigrated to Quebec in 2019 to continue his studies.
His relatives don’t know what brought him north of Quebec on Monday. To their knowledge, according to Najahi-san, he didn’t have bad employees.
Mechanics student
He has been studying car mechanics at the Aviron Technical Institute in Montreal since January 2022, the vocational school confirms. He was halfway through his education.
After the summer holidays, Mr Thimoumi was expected at class last Tuesday but never showed up. The college therefore tried to reach him and it was a neighbor who got the sad news from management.
“It’s a big shock. We experience this shock. It’s sad, it’s really sad. We don’t know what happened,” says the educational director of the facility.
As of Wednesday morning, the Sûreté du Québec had not yet provided any new information on the circumstances and causes of death.
The murder theory is still under investigation, but no suspects have been arrested. Investigations under the aegis of the crimes against persons unit are continuing, spokeswoman Béatrice Dorsainville said.