Trial of man accused in London attack hears of manifesto found on laptop

A man accused of killing a Muslim family in Ontario penned what prosecutors have called a manifesto before his attack, calling himself a white nationalist and peddling conspiracies about Muslims.

Nathaniel Veltman is accused of deliberately hitting five members of the Afzaal family with his truck while they were out for a walk in London, Ont. – prosecutors have alleged his actions amount to an act of terrorism.

Veltman, who has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder, sat beside his lawyer and appeared expressionless at his trial today as prosecutors read portions of the document to the jury.

Veltman’s lawyers agreed he authored the document titled “A White Awakening.”

In it, he baselessly refers to conspiracies about white genocide and ethnic replacement and then calls on others to make life “very uncomfortable” for Muslims so they are “driven out of our countries fast.”

It ends with the same line as a manifesto authored by the gunman behind the 2019 New Zealand mass killing of 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques.

The jury has seen video of Veltman telling police the New Zealand shooter was an inspiration to carry out what he called his own politically-motivated act of terrorism

Veltman’s case is the first where Canada’s terrorism laws are being put before a jury in a first-degree murder trial.

Salman Afzaal, 46; his 44-year-old wife, Madiha Salman; their 15-year-old daughter, Yumna; and her 74-year-old grandmother, Talat Afzaal, were killed in the attack, while the couple’s nine-year-old son was seriously hurt but survived.