ONTARIO (AP) – A man found guilty of using his pickup truck to kill four members of a Muslim family was sentenced to life in prison as a Canadian judge ruled that the actions of the admitted white nationalist amounted to terrorism.
Nathaniel Veltman has also been sentenced to a concurrent life sentence for the attempted murder of a boy who survived the 2021 attack.
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.
Prosecutors argued that Veltman purposely ran his truck into the Afzaal family while they were out for a walk on June 6, 2021, to intimidate Muslims into leaving Canada. The defence sought to show he wasn’t criminally liable saying he had mental health problems.
Justice Renee Pomerance, who presided over the trial, delivered her sentencing decision to a packed London, Ontario, courtroom. Adults found guilty of first-degree murder in Canada face an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
The case was the first time Canada’s terrorism laws were put before a jury in a first-degree murder trial.
Pomerance ruled that Veltman’s actions constituted terrorism and said the brutality of the crime called for the imposition of the strictest penalty known to Canadian law.
“The offender did not know the victims. He had never met them. He killed them because they were Muslim,” she said.
“It is an inescapable conclusion that the offender committed a terrorist act. One might go so far as to characterise this as a textbook example of terrorist motive and intent.”
Veltman was convicted of killing 46-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. The couple’s nine-year-old son was seriously hurt but survived.
