Nathaniel Veltman, 20, an alleged perpetrator of a car-ramming attack that killed four members of a Muslim family on June 6 in Canada, has been charged with terrorism, investigators and the prosecution said on Monday.
The suspect briefly appeared in court Monday morning in London, a city in southern Ontario where the tragedy took place.
At a first hearing last week, he had already been charged with four counts of premeditated murder and attempted murder after the attack which had been described as a "terrorist" act by the Prime Minister. Canadian Justin Trudeau. "Attorneys general at the federal and provincial levels have given their consent to initiate terrorism proceedings, alleging that the murders and attempted murder also constitute terrorist activity," said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The young man, who has no criminal record and no known affiliation with an extremist organization, said he does not have a lawyer at the moment.
Nathaniel Veltman is scheduled to appear again at a hearing scheduled for June 21.
According to London police, he had deliberately run into the Afzaal family with his pickup in a "premeditated and planned, motivated by hate" act.
Four dead, one survivor
Five members of the same family were struck down while waiting to cross at a crossroads in the city of London, 200 km southwest of Toronto.
Both parents, their 15-year-old daughter and her grandmother were killed, but their 9-year-old son, seriously injured, survived.
He was able to leave the hospital and was taken care of by members of his family, several Canadian media revealed on Monday.
To put faces to London, Ontario crime.
Salman Afzaal, his wife Madiha and their daughter Yumna, as well as Yumna's grandmother all died in Sunday's attack.
Their 9-year-old son Fayez was seriously injured.
This photo is courtesy of the family.
pic.twitter.com/cl8I1ExlwH
- Bruno Guglielminetti (@Guglielminetti) June 9, 2021
"I think it is very important for us to talk about a terrorist act", for her part reacted Monday the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, Chrystia Freeland.
"It is important for us to identify this as an act of Islamophobia and it is important for us to identify the terrible threat that white supremacism poses to Canada and to Canadians," she added, during a press briefing.
This drama constitutes the deadliest attack on Muslims in Canada since the shooting at the Quebec mosque that killed six people in 2017. The perpetrator, a Canadian supremacist, had not, however, been charged with act of terrorism.