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QUEBEC — Quebec City mosque killer Alexandre Bissonnette will spend at least the next 40 years in prison — a sentence that stunned a Muslim community that expected a harsher punishment.

The sentence came just over two years after Bissonnette gunned down six Muslim men, some of them execution-style, after storming into a mosque with two guns and 108 rounds of ammunition.

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“Through your hatred and racism, you have destroyed the lives of dozens and dozens of people, and have irretrievably ruined yours and those of your family members,” Superior Court Justice François Huot told Bissonnette, 29, who showed little emotion as his sentence was handed down Friday.

Huot said he imposed an “exemplary” sentence “so as to discourage those who, sharing your sectarian vision, would aspire to follow in your footsteps. Intolerance and racism decay our social fabric. It is the duty of the courts to repress them firmly when they materialize in criminal acts.”