The mother of the man accused of killing a soldier at Ottawa’s National War Memorial then storming the Canadian parliament before being shot dead says she is crying for the victims of the shooting, not her son.

A masked gunman who killed a soldier at Canada’s war memorial and stormed parliament before being shot dead by the ceremonial sergeant-at-arms was an Islamic convert, it has emerged.

A Canadian soldier standing guard at a war memorial in the country’s capital was shot dead yesterday, and gunfire then erupted inside Parliament, authorities said.