OTTAWA (Reuters) -- Canadian police said Saturday they had charged a 15-year-old student with wounding five people in a knife attack at a high school near Ottawa Thursday and had linked him to documents referring to the Columbine High School massacre.
"Investigators have done interviews with 40 witnesses up to now, and documents have been found which reference the incident to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.," Ottawa-Carleton police Sgt. Leo Janveau said."We have information indicating that the boy had premeditated his acts," he added.
On April 20, 1999, two teenage gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide at Columbine High.
Janveau said police laid charges Saturday morning at the Ottawa Courthouse against the boy, who left five people injured, including four students and a secretary.
The student, described as an unpopular outsider, was arrested at an Ottawa hospital where he was recovering from self-inflicted injuries to his wrists and hands after the attack at Cairine Wilson High School in Orleans, outside Ottawa.
"The boy was charged with one count of attempted murder, five counts of assault with a weapon, one count of mischief and one count of possession of a dangerous weapon," Janveau said.
The policeman said the pupil was expected to remain in custody until a court appearance next Wednesday.
Janveau gave no information on the documents linking the Canadian stabbing to the Columbine shooting of April 20, 1999, adding more witnesses had to be interviews.
"The investigation is far from being over and we are working closely with the school to understand what happened and to prevent another such incident," Janveau asserted.
The Ottawa Citizen daily also reported Saturday that the 15-year-old suspect was repeatedly counting down the days to Thursday's first anniversary of the Columbine attack, quoting a witness.
The 16-year-old witness, who has said he was a close friend of the suspect, gave a statement to the Ottawa-Carleton police saying the student would "count down four or five times a day," the newspaper reported.
"It was tied to Columbine, just the way he's been counting down to the day," the witness is quoted as saying.
"It was a copycat. It happened everywhere. We would be on the phone or walking and he would say seven days to Columbine, 11:21, six days till Columbine, 11:21," the witness told the paper. The massacre at the Colorado school began at 11:21 a.m.