‘This was terrorism’: Crown delivers closing submissions at London, Ont. attack trial

Nathaniel Veltman, 22, was not derealized, detached and depersonalized but disciplined and determined in carrying out a terrorist attack, the Crown alleged in closing submissions at his first-degree murder trial.

Lawyer Fraser Ball continued his submissions Wednesday morning, arguing the Crown has proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Veltman’s actions – culminating in the deaths of four members of a Muslim family and the orphaning of a fifth – meet the legal requirement for first-degree murder under both the planned and deliberate and the terrorist activity sections.

Veltman drove his truck “pedal to the metal” on June 6, 2021 into the Afzaal family in London, Ont. Salman Afzaal, 46; his 44-year-old wife, Madiha Salman; their 15-year-old daughter, Yumna; and her 74-year-old grandmother, Talat Afzaal, were killed in the attack, while the couple’s nine-year-old son was seriously hurt but survived.

The defence has suggested that the interplay between Veltman’s autism spectrum disorder (ASD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and personality disorder with his ingestion of psilocybin 40 hours prior left him in a “drug-fuelled hypomanic state” where he was unable to resist his obsessive impulses. The defence suggested that Veltman is guilty of manslaughter, but that his actions don’t meet the threshold for first-degree murder.

The Crown’s closing submissions

The Crown, however, spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning raising suspicion over Veltman’s diagnoses and what it framed as a lack of science to support claims about the unique way that the defence claimed the mushrooms impacted Veltman.

“Nathaniel Veltman had a message for Muslims. That message was strong, that message was brutal, and that message was terrifying: leave this country or you and your loved ones could be next.”

Ball told the jurors that while simplicity is not the guiding principle in making their decision, “there are a lot of simple, highly reasonable explanations for Mr. Veltman’s behaviour,” for example, that Veltman appeared excited in his first police interview because he was excited and that he appeared tired in the second because he was tired and that he drove the truck as fast as he could into the family because he wanted to kill them.

The evidence is “overwhelming,” Ball said, pointing to eyewitness accounts, surveillance video of the incident, DNA evidence, crash data from the truck, photographs of the scene, the 911 call, the document ‘A White Awakening’ and Veltman’s statements to Det. Micah Bourdeau.

The Crown also sought to undermine the credibility of expert witness Dr. Julian Gojer, a psychiatrist, saying a “heavily biased expert is no expert.”

“Dr. Gojer agrees that if you remove the OCD and the ASD, then it weakens the entire analysis. That is a real problem for Dr. Gojer and the defence. Because you, members of the jury, have very good reason to believe the OCD and ASD should be removed from the analysis.”

Ball noted that during a month-long stay at a hospital in Ottawa under Gojer, Veltman did not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of OCD under the DSM-V. As for the ASD diganosis, Ball said “Dr. Gojer did not have access to a wealth of important information to support his ASD diagnosis,” noting that he was unable to interview Veltman’s mother or siblings and that he was not given access to his old medical records, nor did Gojer perform any of the established tests for ASD in making his diagnosis.

Under testimony, Gojer said questionnaires for ASD do not replace clinical evaluation, yet much of his hypothesis about the magic mushrooms having a “rebound” effect on Veltman was supported by a single online survey, Ball raised.

“Out of 1,400 respondents, only three described symptoms even close to what Mr. Veltman described. There’s no way to verify the veracity of the results of the survey.”

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The other literature Gojer relied on for his hypothesis was focused on withdrawal from selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), not mushrooms, which Ball said was comparing apples to oranges.

The Crown also argued that the jury should believe Veltman’s own words in his interviews with police in the 14 hours after the Afzaal family was run over and in ‘A White Awakening,’ the document Veltman spent a month writing that the Crown characterized as a manifesto, over his testimony on the stand at trial.

“Mr. Veltman may now regret talking with Det. Bourdeau, that he had laid all of his thoughts and plans bare for all” to see, Ball said, but Veltman cannot change that record.

“He told Det. Bourdeau, ‘I’m going to commit a terrorist attack’ and that he decided it had to be ‘brutal.’”

At trial, Veltman testified that he was almost using Bourdeau like a “therapist” and that he was grasping for any excuse he could to rationalize what had happened.

But Ball noted that Veltman mentioned his “message” 15 times in the two interviews with Bourdeau and provides a logical accounting of his planning.

“You should reject the ‘justify my actions’ claim outright,” Ball said. “It makes no sense.”

He argued that the Crown has proven Veltman’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that these were “planned and deliberate murders.”

As for the path to conviction of first-degree murder under terrorist activity – an offence introduced in 2001 as part of the Anti-Terrorism Act and which has never before been in the hands of a jury (the first conviction under the charge was only in 2021 and involved a man who pleaded guilty) – Ball believes the Crown has again proven guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

In the case of first-degree murder by way of terrorist activity, there is no requirement for planning and deliberation, but only that death results from a person committing or attempting to commit an offence that also constitutes a terrorist activity.

In Veltman’s case, Ball told the jury that the accused told Bourdeau that he was inspired by the New Zealand mosque shooter and that “I would not have done what I did if it wasn’t for others.” Ball pointed to Veltman’s racist descriptions of Muslims in his document ‘A White Awakening,’ as well as his writing that different races or cultures couldn’t live peacefully together and that he didn’t believe in democracy.

Ball said Veltman “continued to stoke his own racist hatred of Muslims” and “actively sought out” extreme content online to reinforce this.

“This was terrorism and that makes this first-degree murder,” Ball said, adding that the Crown believes Veltman’s purposes for the murders were political, religious and ideological.

“In murdering the Afzaals, Mr. Veltman had a bigger target in mind, a broader target: all Muslims,” he said.

“What Muslim person could feel safe in public in the wake of Mr. Veltman’s attack?”

The defence’s closing submissions

The defence, however, has argued that there is a lack of evidence to allow for the jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Veltman is guilty of first-degree murder, be it through planning and deliberation or under Canada’s terrorism laws.

“Planning is assigned its natural meaning of a calculated scheme or design which has been carefully thought out and the nature and consequences of which have been considered and weighed. On the evidence that we have, Nate Veltman had no such plan and has testified before you that he had no such plan,” lawyer Christopher Hicks told the court.

“A deliberate act is one that the actor has taken time to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of. Deliberate in this context means considered and not impulsive, carefully thought out, not hasty or rash. Deliberation must take place before the act of murder and consideration, even with an intention to kill, is not a deliberate murder.”

The defence’s position is that Veltman had no time to deliberate killing the Afzaal family, noting that from the time he saw them on the street to the time he turned around and began driving toward them was about 19 seconds.

Additionally, while the Crown has argued that Veltman bought and prepared his truck specifically for the attack, Hicks says the truck was “simply a truck.”

“He bought it because his Chevy Wave failed and he needed transportation to travel the 35 kilometres to his work in Strathroy. So he purchased this used vehicle and consequently purchased a warranty to protect himself for a year. He purchased a grill bar to protect it from off-roading … and he tinted the window because he had always had tinted windows,” he told the jury.

“Suggestions to the contrary by the prosecution on any of these points lacks any evidence. They’re speculative and conjecture.”

As for first-degree murder by way of terrorist activity, which does not require that a murder be premeditated, Hicks suggested that the document written by Veltman, ‘A White Awakening,’ was not a manifesto as described by the Crown but was “in compliance with his personality” and simply an example of him “venting to an imaginary audience.”

At no point did Veltman send the document to anyone and at no point within it does he mention violence or murder, Hicks said, though it does contain vague and ambiguous terms, including a suggestion to make lives “uncomfortable” for Muslims.

“Nate Veltman was a loner. Isolated in his childhood and his teenage years, living alone in an apartment in London, Ontario all by himself. Nate Veltman was a loner, he had no audience, he had no individual or group to whom he could or would send ‘A White Awakening.’”

Twice in his closing submissions to the jury, Hicks accepted that if the jury believes what Veltman told Bourdeau in two interviews conducted within the 14 hours after his arrest, then the jury likely has already made its decision.

However, he suggested that Veltman’s statements to Bourdeau are compromised by circumstances including the interplay between Veltman’s autism spectrum disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and personality disorder – as diagnosed by Gojer – the “rebound” or lingering effect of the psilocybin he had ingested roughly 40 hours earlier, and the conditions surrounding his arrest and custody at London Police Headquarters.

“For instance, it was brought to our attention that Nate Veltman at one point spoke virtually without pause for 15 pages of transcript. You saw the video, it would seem that he hardly drew a breath the entire time.”

Hicks suggests Veltman’s “frantic display” confirms his testimony, that he was desperately trying to rationalize and defend what he had done.

“We must also consider that this interrogation process, or interview as Det. Bourdeau called it, was a planned exercise to break Nate Veltman. It was designed to break him.”

Hicks also reminded the jury that Veltman testified that his words to Bourdeau were “not true.”

The defence suggested that Veltman drove at the Afzaal family in hopes of freeing himself of his obsessions with so-called Muslim grooming gangs. Hicks raised the question of whether Veltman was capable of forming the intent for murder and whether he did, in fact, form that intent.

“He would still be responsible for the deaths of these people. He would still be guilty of homicide … but he would be guilty of manslaughter and not murder. Where there is a death but the death is not intended, that is manslaughter.”

Lastly, Hicks noted that because the accused testified – which is not required by law – the defence counsel must address the jury first “and with no right of reply” after the Crown presents its closing submissions.

“So, I would then ask you, in listening to the Crown’s closing address, to bear in mind my comments and to put yourself in my shoes as it were and say, ‘What might the defence say to that?’ As I understand it, that is part of your duty as jurors as well.”