Sentencing hearing continues for man found guilty in London attack on Muslim family

More relatives of the Muslim family members killed by a self-proclaimed white nationalist addressed an Ontario court on Friday, telling a sentencing hearing that the attack shattered their faith in Canada as a place of tolerance.

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 in London, Ont. on June 6, 2021.

His trial was heard in Windsor, Ont., but the sentencing proceedings, including victim impact statements, are taking place in London.

Through dozens of wrenching victim impact statements, the Azfaals have been remembered as warm and generous people by relatives in Canada and abroad.

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 family had moved to Canada from Pakistan in 2007.

Veltman said he targeted them with his truck because he believed they were Muslim based on their clothing and Salman Afzaal’s beard.

In a statement read in court by the Crown, Madiha Salman’s cousin Omar Ahmed, who lives in Pakistan, said he grew up watching relatives move to western countries to pursue better opportunities.

“The American Canadian dream was the end goal,” he told the court. “But this is how the dream ends.”

Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, Amira Elghawaby, is in London to observe the hearing.

In a statement, she said “Canada has had the highest number of targeted deadly attacks against Muslims of any other G7 country.”

She described Veltman’s killings as “the second mass attack against Muslims in Canada,” after the 2017 Quebec City mosque shooting that killed six men.

“The shock, horror, and dismay that Islamophobia can become deadly is a realization that many Canadian Muslims have had to grapple with for years,” Elghawaby said.

“Hate against any Canadian is a direct threat to the safety and security of all Canadians.”

Addressing the sentencing hearing on Thursday, Madiha Salman’s aunt recalled picking up clothes from her grand-niece’s bedroom floor a day after the murders and “desperately seeking solace” in her scent for the final time.

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 later this month.

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.