The Canadian citizen who police contend shot dead a soldier at a war memorial before charging into Parliament had intended to travel to Saudi Arabia, not Syria, his mother said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had said that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, had travelled to Ottawa from Vancouver to try to obtain a passport and intended to travel to Syria.
They said his mother, Susan Bibeau, had revealed that information in an interview.
But Ms Bibeau told Postmedia, which publishes many major Canadian newspapers, that she had said her son intended to travel to Saudi Arabia, not Syria.
"I want to correct the statement of the RCMP," wrote Ms Bibeau, who is deputy chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
"I never said he wanted to go to Syria, I specifically said Saudi Arabia.
"They taped my conversation, so there can little doubt about the accuracy of what I said."
RCMP officials described Zehaf-Bibeau, whose attack ended when security officials shot him dead, as having become radicalised in recent years, a label they also applied to another man who ran over two soldiers outside Montreal with his car on Monday, killing one.
A US source described Zehaf-Bibeau as a recent convert to Islam.
An official at the Libyan embassy in Ottawa on Friday said Zehaf-Bibeau, whose father was born in Libya, had attempted unsuccessfully to secure a Libyan passport.
Ms Bibeau said she had minimal contact with her son over the past five years, but recently met him for lunch, where he discussed his views.
"Most will call my son a terrorist," Bibeau wrote. "I don't believe he was part of an organisation or acted on behalf of some grand ideology or for a political motive. I believe he acted in despair.
"I am not sure of the meaning of being radicalised. I doubt he watched much Islamic propaganda, I doubt he wanted to go fight in Syria."
"As a person and mother I am horrified by the actions of my son, I am sickened by it. I will never understand what drives a person to such senseless violence," Ms Bibeau wrote.
She added that her son's acts were so horrific that she had buried her sadness and mourning "deep within me."
RCMP Commissioner Mike Cabana acknowledged to the Post that earlier police statements that Zehaf-Bibeau had intended to travel to Syria were incorrect.
"Our guys realised that they made a mistake" after reviewing a taped interview with his mother, Mr Cabana said.
But Mr Cabana said the RCMP saw no need to correct the record since militants travelling to Syria often first pass through Saudi Arabia or Turkey.
Ms Bibeau also said her son was in the grips of serious mental illness that deteriorated with his use of drugs.
Zehaf-Bibeau had past criminal convictions for drug possession and uttering threats in a mugging.
His mother also mentioned his alienation from the home, recalling that he preferred to stay in homeless shelters than return to her house.
She expressed deep apologies to the Canadian people as a whole and in particular to the family of the soldier who was killed, Corporal Nathan Cirillo.
