Nathaniel Veltman is escorted leaving trial outside Ontario Superior Court in Windsor, Ont., Tuesday, Sept.5, 2023. A sentencing hearing for the man who killed four members of a Muslim family in London, Ont. and injured another is set to start today.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dax Melmer
LONDON, Ont. – A local faith leader says Nathaniel Veltman’s sentencing hearing will be a time to reflect on the ways the deadly attack on an Ontario Muslim family has reverberated through a community.
Abd Alfatah Twakkal, who chairs the London Council of Imams, says he expects the sentencing hearing will feature accounts of the emotional, physical and spiritual impacts of Veltman’s attack directly from the victim’s family, friends and community members.
The Imam says the killing of four members of the Afzaal family must be a moment of decisive action to ensure cities are safe havens for people of all backgrounds “for the sake of our common humanity.”
Nathaniel Veltman, 23, was found guilty in November of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder for hitting the Afzaal family with his truck while they were out for a walk on June 6, 2021.
His trial was heard in Windsor, Ont., but the sentencing proceedings ““including the delivering of victim impact statements ““ will be taking place in London, where the attack took place.
Forty-six-year-old Salman Afzaal; his 44-year-old wife, Madiha Salman; their 15-year-old daughter, Yumna; and her 74-year-old grandmother, Talat Afzaal, were killed, while the couple’s nine-year-old son was seriously hurt but survived.
The attack devastated the city and triggered national calls to combat Islamophobia.
Nusaiba Al-Azem, a legal director for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, says Veltman’s trial must be a moment of national reckoning.
She said the attack sent a deliberate and hateful message across the country. “We must as ourselves,” she said, “as a society, what message do we wish to send in return?”
Veltman’s trial was the first where Canada’s terrorism laws were put before a jury in a first-degree murder trial.
Justice Renee Pomerance, who oversaw the trial, instructed the jury they could convict Veltman of first-degree murder if they unanimously agreed prosecutors had established he intended to kill the victims, and planned and deliberated his attack.
She also told the jurors they could reach that same verdict if they found that the killings were terrorist activity.
The terror component isn’t a separate charge, and juries don’t explain how they reach their verdict, so it’s unclear what role ““ if any ““ the terror allegations played in their decision.
Pomerance may make findings on that issue as part of the sentencing process.
Prosecutors had argued the attack was an act of terrorism by a self-professed white nationalist while defence lawyers argued Veltman didn’t have criminal intent to kill the victims and didn’t deliberate and plan the attack.
During the trial, Veltman testified that he was influenced by the writings of a gunman who committed the 2019 mass killings of 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in New Zealand.
He also said he had been considering using his pickup truck, which he bought a month earlier, to carry out an attack and looked up information online about what happens when pedestrians get struck by cars at various speeds.
He told the jury that he felt an “urge” to hit the Afzaal family after seeing them walking on a sidewalk, adding that he knew they were Muslims from the clothes they were wearing and he noticed that the man in the group had a beard.
Jurors had also seen video of Veltman telling a detective that his attack had been motivated by white nationalist beliefs. Court also heard that he wrote a manifesto in the weeks before the attack, describing himself as a white nationalist and peddling unfounded conspiracy theories about Muslims.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 4, 2024.
