OTTAWA: A Canadian man who used his truck to run down a Muslim family out for a walk was found guilty Thursday in Canada’s first murder trial in which jurors were asked to consider a terrorism motive related to white supremacy.
Nathaniel Veltman, 22, was convicted of four counts of first degree or premeditated murder, and one count of attempted murder. He faces up to life in prison when sentenced.
He acknowledged striking the Afzaal family with his pick-up truck in June 2021 in London, Ontario, which left three generations of the family dead and a young boy orphaned.
The prosecution argued at trial that he was motivated by white supremacist ideology and sought to intimidate or terrorize Muslims.
The defense said he’d suffered a mental decline — which did not, however, meet the requirements for an insanity plea — and was in “a state of extreme confusion” after consuming hallucinogenic psilocybin mushrooms that weekend.
“Today’s verdict is a monumental step in the fight against hate and Islamophobia,” Imam Abdul Fattah Twakkal said outside the courthouse.
“It sets a precedent against white nationalist terrorism,” he said. “It sends a clear message that such hate has no place in our society.”
But he added, “the evidence that came out of this trial shows us that there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that the next radicalized young man is not out there.”
Tabinda Bukhari, the mother of one of the adult victims, told reporters: “The enduring grief, trauma and the irreplaceable void left by the loss of multiple generations of one family has pierced us profoundly.”
The verdict, she added, provides “some solace.”
The jury in the almost 10-week trial heard Veltman had penned a “terrorist manifesto,” found on his computer, in which he espoused white nationalism and described his hate for Muslims.
He “dressed like a soldier,” wearing body armor and a helmet, with a “crusader T-shirt” with a red cross, prosecutor Fraser Ball said in closing arguments earlier this week.
“He was hunting for Muslims to kill,” he said.
When Veltman passed the Afzaal family on a London street on that warm Sunday evening, the Crown attorney said, he turned his pick-up truck around and accelerated “pedal to the metal,” jumping the curb as he drove into them.
Bodies flew into the air.
Salman Afzaal, 46, his wife Madiha Salman, 44, their 15-year-old daughter Yumnah and her grandmother Talat Afzaal, 74, were killed. A nine-year-old boy orphaned in the ramming suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Bits of the victims’ clothing were found embedded in the grill of Veltman’s truck after he surrendered in a nearby parking lot. He told police he’d wanted to “send a strong message” against Muslim immigration.
Ball said that message was “brutal and terrifying: leave this country or you and your loved ones could be next.”
The defense argued that a combination of mental disorders, childhood traumas and drug use left Veltman feeling detached or disconnected from reality.
The attack two years ago “changed Canadian Muslims’ relationship with their country,” said Omar Khamissa, head of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. “For the first time for many of us, we felt unsafe and targeted just for walking down the street.”
Former federal minister Omar Alghabra said on X, formerly Twitter, that this case was “an example of how hateful words could lead to radicalization which could lead to deadly violence.”
Defense lawyer Christopher Hicks said that Veltman was, after the verdict, “in shock, because he knows he’s looking at 25 years in jail without hope of parole.”
A date for a sentencing hearing will be scheduled on December 1.
The slaying was the deadliest anti-Muslim attack in Canada since a shooting at a mosque in Quebec City in 2017 that left six dead. The perpetrator of that shooting was not accused of terrorism.
Canadian man who ran over Muslim family convicted of murder
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Canadian man who ran over Muslim family convicted of murder
Georgia court rejects jailed ex-president Saakashvili’s appeal
- Saakashvili, 57, was sentenced in multiple cases to a combined 12 years and six months
- “The Tbilisi court of appeals upheld the verdict,” his lawyer Beka Basilaia told journalists
TBILISI: A Georgian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili against a prison sentence that he and his backers see as political retribution by his opponents.
The pro-Western reformist politician, who ruled the Caucasus country from 2004 to 2013, was arrested in 2021 after returning to Georgia from exile in Ukraine in the back of a dairy truck.
Saakashvili, 57, was sentenced in multiple cases to a combined 12 years and six months earlier this year, charged with misuse of public funds and illegally crossing Georgia’s border.
“The Tbilisi court of appeals upheld the verdict,” his lawyer Beka Basilaia told journalists on Tuesday.
The sole appeal had been against a four-and-a-half-year sentence for the illegal border crossing.
Basilaia criticized what he called an “unprecedented” move by the court not to conduct an oral hearing as part of the appeal.
Saakashvili and rights groups have denounced his prosecution as a political move by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which has been accused of democratic backsliding and growing rapprochement with Moscow.
Saakashvili has been held in a civilian hospital since 2022, when he staged a 50-day hunger strike in protest at his detention.
The European Parliament has called for his immediate release.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “killing” Saakashvili “at the hands of the Georgian authorities.”
Zelensky granted Saakashvili Ukrainian citizenship and named him one of his top advisers in 2019.
Georgia and Russia fought a short war in 2008 — while Saakashvili was president — for control of breakaway Georgian territories.
The European Union and the United States have urged Georgia to ensure Saakashvili is provided medical treatment and that his rights are protected.
The Council of Europe rights watchdog has branded him a “political prisoner,” while Amnesty International has called his treatment “apparent political revenge.”
Georgian authorities have also jailed several former Saakashvili officials, in what rights groups have described as a political witch-hunt.
‘Kyiv should be ours’: Russians boosted after Putin-Trump call
- “I am rooting for our country, I love it very much and I just want Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) to just, after all, get justice done,” Anastasia told AFP
- Asked what her main feeling was following the talks, pensioner Sofiya said: “Uncertainty“
MOSCOW: A day after Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump spoke by phone on Ukraine, showering each other with compliments, Russian home-maker Anastasia had one wish: for Moscow to finish what it started in 2022.
In the fourth spring of Moscow’s devastating offensive, which has killed tens of thousands, diplomatic movement in recent days has given Russians a boost in confidence that victory — in some shape or another — is approaching.
In the call with Trump on Monday, the Russian leader once again brushed off calls for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, as demanded by the West and Kyiv.
Despite that, the US president said the “tone” of the conversation was “excellent.”
Russia controls a fifth of Ukraine and holds an upper hand on the battlefield.
“I am rooting for our country, I love it very much and I just want Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) to just, after all, get justice done,” Anastasia told AFP in the Moscow suburbs, echoing official language calling for the defeat of Ukraine.
Not knowing how or when it would happen, the 40-year-old mother, who declined to give her surname, said she was getting impatient.
“I don’t want my children to have to solve this issue. Let’s decide it here and now.”
But she had no trust in Trump — who she said is “just a businessman” who “wants money and nothing else” — and worried the “Anglo-Saxons” will trick Russia.
Putin has shown no sign of scaling down his maximalist demands for ending the Ukraine conflict, seeking little short of capitulation from Kyiv.
At talks in Istanbul last week, Russian negotiators demanded Ukraine abandon territory it still controls in the east and south.
Russia also wants Ukraine barred from NATO and for Western military support to end.
Putin has repeatedly called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to be removed from office.
Confidence was tinged with uncertainty in Moscow after the Putin-Trump call, in which the Russian leader floated a vague “memorandum” that would outline demands for a peace deal and Trump said Kyiv and Moscow would begin talks swiftly.
Many in Moscow did not know what Trump or Putin meant.
Asked what her main feeling was following the talks, pensioner Sofiya said: “Uncertainty.”
“It’s interesting what will happen to us, not only to our families, but our country,” said the 72-year-old, who declined to give her surname.
Like many, Sofiya saw no real progress from last week’s talks — the first direct negotiations on the conflict in more than three years.
“I don’t know how to express this, but I would like calm and peace,” she said.
Moscow has ramped up military censorship amid its Ukraine offensive, threatening years in prison for those who criticize or question the campaign.
Zelensky said Russia was not serious about talks and is trying to “buy time” to continue its offensive.
Putin was indeed hoping to advance more on the ground and will not “miss the opportunity” for a summer offensive, said Russian analyst Konstantin Kalachev.
He called the Trump call a “tactical victory” for the Russian leader.
“Russia is hoping to push them (Ukrainian forces) this summer,” Kalachev said.
“There will be no peace, while Russia has not yet used the option of a final offensive,” he said, highlighting the prospect of a summer ground campaign.
Though Putin said both sides should be ready to make “compromises,” few were forthcoming from the Kremlin or on the streets of Moscow.
“I believe that Odesa, Kharkiv, Nikolayev (Mykolaiv), Kyiv should be ours,” said another pensioner, 70-year-old Marina, who also declined to give her surname, reeling off a string of Ukrainian cities that Russia has not formally claimed.
Russian state TV said Moscow’s negotiators threatened in Istanbul to seize more land if Ukraine does not pull its troops out of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions that Moscow claims to have annexed.
“If the four regions will not be recognized in the nearest future, the next time there will be six regions,” said state TV presenter Yevgeny Popov.
Moscow’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky later evoked Russia’s 21-year war with Sweden in the 18th century, hinting Moscow was ready for a long fight.
Marina, too, said she would support Russia to fight on, even as thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed.
“Of course, it is a big shame that our people are also dying,” she told AFP. “But there is no other way.”
Poland to try suspect in alleged Russian plot to assassinate Zelensky
- The man, identified as Pawel K., was arrested in April 2024
- Prosecutors said he had declared his readiness to act for Russia’s military intelligence
WARSAW: Polish authorities have indicted a man charged with planning to help Russian foreign intelligence services prepare a possible attempt to assassinate Ukraine’s president, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The man, identified as Pawel K., was arrested in April 2024 after cooperation between Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors, and faces up to eight years in prison.
According to prosecutors, he had declared his readiness to act for the military intelligence of the Russian Federation and established contacts with Russians who were directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
“The activities were to help, among other things, in the planning by the Russian special services of a possible assassination attempt on the life of ... the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky,” the prosecution said in a statement.
Pawel K.’s tasks included collecting and providing information on security at the Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport in southeastern Poland, prosecutors said.
Poland, a hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine, says it has become a major target of Russian spies, accusing Moscow and its ally Belarus of trying to destabilize it — accusations which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.
PKK urges Turkiye to ease leader’s solitary confinement for any peace talks
- The disbanding mechanisms are unclear yet
- Hiwa said the PKK has shown “seriousness regarding peace,” but “till now the Turkish state has not given any guarantees”
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has said Türkiye should ease prison conditions for its founder Abdullah Ocalan, declaring him the group’s “chief negotiator” for any future talks after a decision to disband.
The Kurdish group, blacklisted by Ankara and its Western allies, announced on May 12 it had adopted a decision to disarm and disband after a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that cost more than 40,000 lives.
The group’s historic decision came after an appeal by Ocalan, made in a letter from Istanbul’s Imrali prison island where he has been held since 1999.
Zagros Hiwa, spokesman for the PKK’s political wing, told AFP on Monday that “we expect that the Turkish state makes amendments in the solitary confinement conditions” to allow Ocalan “free and secure work conditions so that he could lead the process.”
“Leader Apo is our chief negotiator” for any talks with Türkiye, Hiwa added in an interview, referring to Ocalan.
“Only Leader Apo can lead the practical implementation of the decision taken by the PKK.”
The disbanding mechanisms are unclear yet, but the Turkish government has said it would carefully monitor the process to ensure full implementation.
Hiwa said the PKK has shown “seriousness regarding peace,” but “till now the Turkish state has not given any guarantees and taken any measure for facilitating the process” and continued its “bombardments and artillery shellings” against the Kurdish group’s positions.
The PKK operates rear bases in Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdistan region, where Türkiye also maintains military bases and often carries out air and ground operations against the Kurdish militants.
Turkish media reports have suggested that militants who had committed no crime on Turkish soil could return without fear of prosecution, but that PKK leaders might be forced into exile or stay behind in Iraq.
Hiwa said the PKK objects to its members or leaders being forced to leave, saying that “real peace requires integration, not exile.”
Second man in court over arson attacks linked to UK PM Starmer
- Neither of the suspects has been charged under terrorism laws or the new National Security Act
- Police said the first fire involved a Toyota Rav4 car that Starmer used to own
LONDON: A second man to be charged over a series of arson attacks on houses and a car linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer appeared in a London court on Tuesday.
Over five days earlier this month, police were called to fires at a house in north London owned by Starmer, another at a property nearby where he used to live, and to a blaze involving a car that also used to belong to the British leader.
Last week, Ukrainian Roman Lavrynovych, 21, was charged in connection with the fires, and on Tuesday Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 26, who was born in Ukraine, appeared in court accused of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life.
“The alleged offense arises from three fires set at locations linked to the prime minister in the last fortnight,” prosecutor Sarah Przybylska said. “At this stage the alleged offending is unexplained.”
Neither of the suspects has been charged under terrorism laws or the new National Security Act which aims to target hostile state activity.
Police said the first fire involved a Toyota Rav4 car that Starmer used to own. Days later, there was a blaze at a property where Starmer once resided and the following day there was an attack on a house in north London that he still owns.
Starmer, who has lived at his official 10 Downing Street residence in central London since becoming prime minister last July, has called the incidents “an attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values we stand for.”
Wearing a light blue hoodie, Carpiuc, who was arrested on Saturday at London’s Luton Airport, spoke only to confirm his name and address while listening to the proceedings through a translator.
He was remanded in custody until a hearing on June 6 at London’s Old Bailey court when his co-accused Lavrynovych is also due to appear.
The prosecutor said a decision would be taken at this hearing as to whether the case would proceed under the terrorism protocol.
Carpiuc’s lawyer Jay Nutkins said his client had lived in Britain for nine years and had just completed a two-year degree at a university in Canterbury.
“He denies being at the scene of any of these fires,” Nutkins said.
Carpiuc funded himself through construction work, Nutkins said. On a casting website for models and actors, an entry under Carpiuc’s name said he was born in western Ukraine and was seeking work as a model.
On Monday, police arrested a third man in connection with the fires and he remains in police custody.
