A man found guilty of using his pickup truck to kill four members of a Muslim family has been sentenced to life in prison as a Canadian judge ruled that the actions of the “admitted white nationalist” amounted to terrorism.

A man found guilty of using his pickup truck to kill four members of a Muslim family was sentenced Thursday 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 defense sought to show he wasn’t criminally liable saying he had mental health problems.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      55·
      4 months ago

      He tried to claim that his actions were due to white nationalism, that he read stuff on the internet that made him want to kill, but then he changed his story to “I took psilocybin mushrooms 2 days ago and I didn’t know what I was doing!” He’s a loser piece of shit with a fucked up looking head.

    • MinorLaceration@lemmy.worldEnglish
      36·
      4 months ago

      And ruined the life of the 9 year old boy who survived the attack, despite being seriously injured and watching his family members die.

      • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        22·
        4 months ago

        Locals that went to the funeral talked about how sad it was to watch an 11 year old boy all alone in a wheelchair roll himself from coffin to coffin to say goodbye to his family.

        I read his victim impact statement, and man it made me tear up:

        Me and Yumnah had plans that when she finally got her driver’s licence, she’d drive me around. She said it would cost 25 cents per drive. Now I’ll never be able to see that.

        I wouldn’t be able to have some of the delicious food that my family used to make like Yumnah’s pasta, Ami’s all around food (because nothing was better than the other), Baba’s butter chicken and Dadi-Jaan’s potato wedges," the boy wrote.

        It’s short and worth the full read tbh..

          • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            4·
            4 months ago

            Weird, it works fine for me on desktop, but I replaced it with a new link that hopefully works.

            And yeah, the attack happened in 2021, so the boy would be 11-12 today, and would have been 9 at the funeral. Just tragic.