Friends and 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 statements, the victims 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.
Mr. Veltman said he targeted them with his black pickup 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, has been 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 Mr. 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,” Ms. Elghawaby said.
A school friend of Yumna’s, Maryam Alsabawi, told the court that she never imagined her teenage years would “be spent fighting hate and Islamophobia.”
“We didn’t just lose Yumna and her beautiful family, but we lost our sense of belonging our sense of community, our sense of safety, our sense of self,” Ms. Alsabawi said.
She told the court that she and Yumna would often talk about their shared plans for the future.
“I miss her contagious laughter, her smile, her kindness, her sense of humour. I miss going on walks with her. And I especially miss receiving her 3 a.m. texts about the most random things,” Ms. Alsabawi said.
Another friend of Yumna’s recounted the agonizing hours after the attack when she tried to convince herself that her friend was OK.
“I texted her finally saying these exact words. ‘Hey, there’s a family in your area, they’re saying Pakistani, hit by a car and left to die. I just want to make sure it wasn’t you and your family.’ I genuinely believe she was going to answer.”
Huda Sallam said she regularly suffers panic attacks, which can be triggered by something as common as someone taking too long to answer a text.
Throughout more than 60 statements, Mr. Veltman has sat in court looking straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with the speakers.
Mr. 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 Mr. 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.
Justice 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 Mr. Veltman didn’t have criminal intent to kill the victims and didn’t deliberate and plan the attack.
During the trial, Mr. 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.
Jurors had also seen video of Mr. 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.