Man killed three generations of Canadian family to make ‘all Muslims fearful for their safety’, court hears

If found guilty, Nathaniel Veltman faces life in prison

Nathaniel Veltman is escorted while leaving trial outside Ontario Superior Court in Windsor, Ontario, Tuesday, 5 September 2023

A 22-year-old Canadian man accused of killing three generations of a family in Ontario in 2021 wanted to send a “brutal message” to all Muslims, a jury was told on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said in their closing argument that Nathaniel Veltman wanted to send the “message” to Muslims to “leave this country or you and your loved ones could be next” and “made the conscious choice to fill himself full of hate for Muslims ... and to plan and execute a murderous terrorist attack”.

Three generations of a Muslim family – high school student Yumnah Afzaal, 15, her parents Madiha Salman, 44, and Salman Afzaal, 46, and family matriarch Talat Afzaal, 74, who was a teacher and artist, were killed while out for an evening walk on 6 June 2021. A nine-year-old boy was seriously injured but survived.

Both defence and prosecution attorneys concur that it was Mr Veltman who drove his pickup truck into the Afzaal family while they were out for a walk.

According to the BBC, Mr Veltman’s case marked the first time a Canadian jury heard legal arguments on terrorism related to white supremacy.

Local media reported that over the course of his testimony, Mr Veltman spoke of his Christian upbringing, detailing a troubled childhood with a “passive” father and a “religious fanatic” mother.

He pleaded not guilty to the four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and associated terror charges and claimed that he was battling mental illness. During his testimony, he told the court that there was a “process of decline mentally” in the months leading up to the attack.

The prosecutors asserted that he killed the family because of their faith. They said that Mr Veltman adopted a far-right ideology after months of online “research”, which involved watching videos of mass killings and reading manifestos from white supremacists, including right before he left his apartment on the night of the attack.

During the trial, the prosecutors read out parts of Mr Veltman’s manifesto, titled “A White Awakening”, in which he criticised mass immigration, multiculturalism, and what he perceived as crimes against white people.

Mr Veltman had been viewing “highly racist” content on the dark web as well.

The jury was also told that the accused had taken psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, in the early hours of 5 June 2021.

Defence lawyer Christopher Hicks told jurors that his client did not intend to kill the family, and they should find him guilty of manslaughter, not first-degree murder, which is planned, deliberate and includes the intention to kill.

“He is responsible for the deaths of these people. He’s guilty of homicide – of manslaughter. If there is a death but the death is not intended, he’s guilty of manslaughter,” Mr Hicks said.

“A murder that is not planned and deliberate is not first-degree murder. He had no plan, he did not have time to deliberate and he did not intend to kill the Afzaals.”

If found guilty, Mr Veltman faces life in prison.