DENVER - An advocacy group for Somali immigrants has cautioned against linking terrorism to a Canadian man found dead in a Denver hotel with more than 400 grams of highly toxic sodium cyanide in his room.
Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, of Ottawa was found dead Monday, and police say a powder found in his room was cyanide.
The Denver coroner said Thursday that tests had confirmed that Dirie died of cyanide poisoning but added that officials had not determined whether he committed suicide.
Police have said they don't suspect foul play and the FBI says there's no apparent connection to terrorism.
However, the FBI has been examining possible security issues, given that a foreign national was found dead with a hazardous substance just two weeks before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
The Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn., said Thursday that any attempt to connect Dirie's death to terrorism would be "a rush to judgment."
Acquaintances have said Dirie's family came from Somalia as refugees and are now Canadian citizens.
Dirie was buried in Denver on Thursday following a funeral service at a local mosque, Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali centre in Minnesota, told the Ottawa Sun.
Jamal said it's Muslim custom to immediately bury the dead, which is why Dirie was laid to rest in Denver.
Jamal said he's been asked to speak for the distraught family who immigrated to Canada in the early 1990s.
More than a week ago, Dirie told his Somalian family out of the blue that he was leaving to vacation in Denver.
On Monday, he was found in a fourth-floor room at the ritzy Burnsley Hotel, about four blocks from the Colorado state Capitol. He had been dead for several days.
A female family member told the Sun that Dirie had attended university before dropping out because of diabetes. His father died of complications from diabetes about two years ago.
She also said Dirie had mental health problems and had kept to himself since leaving school, spending most of his days reading at his mother's home.
-- With files from The Canadian Press.
