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Those words, captured on a cell phone video less than a minute long, have been in the hands of the RCMP since the day of the shooting, and every frame of the short video has been examined as part of a criminal investigation.

Zehaf-Bibeau left the video on a cell phone in the car he used to drive up to the National War Memorial and to the foot of Parliament Hill.

The cell phone was unlocked and unencrypted; investigators were left with the impression that Zehaf-Bibeau wanted them to find the video.

The details of how the video came to be, and how it fell into the hands of the RCMP, have been largely shrouded in mystery. Postmedia News has pieced together the details from multiple sources with knowledge of the video that has yet to be shown publicly.

On Friday, a more than four-month wait to see the video will come to an end when RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson walks into a House of Commons committee room and briefs MPs and Canadians about Zehaf-Bibeau’s final message, and the Mounties’ criminal investigation into the Oct. 22 shootings in Ottawa.

The video could answer lingering questions about Zehaf-Bibeau’s actions that day, when he killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial, then stormed Parliament Hill before dying in a shootout inside the Centre Block, including whether he acted alone, or had any help planning or carrying out the shootings.

The video could also answer a central question: whether Zehaf-Bibeau’s actions could be considered an act of terrorism.