After ten weeks of trial and a five-hour deliberation, a Canadian jury on Thursday, November 16, found Nathaniel Veltman, described as a white supremacist, guilty of four murders and one attempted murder for deliberately driving his vehicle into a Muslim family.
On June 6, 2021, the man, now 22 years old, mowed down five members of the Afzaal family in London, near Toronto, in the province of Ontario, killing both parents, a 15-year-old girl and the grandmother. Only the seriously injured 9-year-old boy survived.
At the opening of the trial in early September, which concerns one of the deadliest Islamophobic attacks in Canada, Nathaniel Veltman pleaded not guilty, arguing that he was in a “daze” that day.
This is the first time in a trial in Canada that the accusation of terrorism is mentioned to talk about a man who is a follower of theories of white supremacy. However, the jury, which took less than six hours to deliberate, did not retain this notion of terrorism in rendering its verdict.
“Send a strong message” against immigration
During the trial, the prosecutor explained that Nathaniel Veltman, a believer in white supremacist theories, wanted to kill Muslims to spread fear. He recalled that Mr. Veltman wrote a “terrorist manifesto” in which he advocated white nationalism and described his hatred of Muslims.
“Nathaniel Veltman had a message for Muslims. This message was strong, this message was brutal and this message was terrifying: ‘Leave this country or you and your loved ones could be next,'” prosecutor Fraser Ball recalled at the conclusion of this historic trial. “He was looking for Muslims to kill,” he added, while the accused had also “dressed like a soldier”, with a bulletproof vest and a helmet.
Nathaniel Veltman, who had no previous criminal record and no known affiliation with an extremist organization, said it was a political move because he wanted to “send a strong message” against immigration. During the trial, he said he was influenced by the writings of Brenton Tarrant, the man behind the Christchurch attacks, which left 51 people dead in 2019 at two mosques in New Zealand.
Nathaniel Veltman said he planned to use his pickup truck in an attack and he searched for information online about what happens when pedestrians are hit by cars at different speeds. He told the jury he felt an “urge” to hit the family when he saw them walking on a sidewalk, saying he knew they were Muslim from the clothes they were wearing.
The defense lawyer contested the notion of premeditation: “When he left his apartment on the evening of June 6, he did not have a plan,” argued Christopher Hicks who also insisted on the mental disorders of the accused, prey to consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms. After the verdict was announced, Mr. Hicks said his client was shocked by the decision but did not say whether he would appeal.
Sentencing determined on December 1
For the victims’ families, the verdict brings “a little comfort,” said Tabinda Bukhari, the mother of one of them. Even if “the grief, the trauma and the irreplaceable void left by the loss of several generations have left a deep mark on us.”
“Today’s verdict is a monumental step in the fight against hatred and Islamophobia. It sets a precedent against white nationalist terrorism,” said Abdul Fattah Twakkal, the imam of the London mosque. Saying it was “relieved”, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), recalled that this “attack” had “changed the relationship of Canadian Muslims with their country”, and that it was necessary to reflect on “the Islamophobic violence which has seized Canada.”
A sentencing hearing will be held on December 1. In 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quickly denounced “a terrorist attack motivated by hatred”, promising in particular to strengthen the fight against extremist groups.
This killing constituted one of the deadliest attacks against Muslims in Canada with the shooting at the Quebec mosque, which left six dead, in 2017. The author of this shooting, a Canadian supremacist, had not been charged with an act of terrorism.