A Canadian man who killed ten people while driving in a rental car to a crowded sidewalk in Toronto has been convicted of murder after a judge rejected the defense arguments that he could not bear the consequences of his actions. do not understand.
Alek Minassian was convicted of ten counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder in a trial held online on Wednesday.
Ontario Supreme Court Justice Anne Molloy said the accused sought notoriety for his murders, refused to use his name, and referred to him as “John Doe” throughout.
“He knew death would be irreversible. He knew their families would mourn, “Molloy said in a statement.
‘He freely chose the option that was morally wrong, because he knew what the consequences would be for himself and for everyone else. “It does not matter that he has no remorse or empathy for the victims,” she said as she delivered a 83-page portion of her verdict.
The court heard that on April 23, 2018, the suspect rented a truck and drove it along a busy Toronto street, deliberately hitting pedestrians. His performances have taken the lives of Renuka Amarasingha, Betty Forsyth, Ji Hun Kim, Dorothy Sewell, Anne Marie D’Amico, So He Chung, Andrea Bradden, Chul Min “Eddie” Kang, Geraldine Brady and Munir Najjar.
Molloy also mentions the horrific injuries sustained by sixteen others. Yunsheng Tian, 28, suffered traumatic brain injury, a fracture to his spine, 24 broken vertebrae, facial fractures and a tear to his left leg. Beverley Smith, 81, had both legs amputated above the knee.
The judge spoke of the “numerous civilians who cared for the injured and comforted the dying on the scene”, as well as those who tried to take away the accused’s control of the van and shouted to warn pedestrians. The judge said they were the “true heroes of that day”.
Because Minassian – a violent misogynist and self-described ‘incel’ – has already admitted that he planned and carried out the attack, the five-week trial at the end of last year focused almost entirely on his mental state.
Prosecutors have argued that the accused – motivated by his hatred of women and radicalized on online forums – wants notoriety and is willing to kill as many innocent people as possible to achieve it.
The accused spoke to police after his arrest in 2018 and said he was part of an online subculture of men blaming women for their sexual frustration – and that he drew inspiration from others who used violence as retaliation because they ‘was unable to sleep with anyone’.
But in her ruling, Molloy disputes the idea that he was motivated to commit murder on behalf of the movement “incel” – or “involuntary celibacy”.
“I’m sure resentment towards women who were never interested in him was a factor in this attack, but not the driving force,” she wrote. ‘Instead … he had a back on the’ incel ‘movement to bolster his own fame. ‘
Instead, Molloy pointed out that Minassian was “deeply lonely”, saw himself as a failure and spent hours looking at “corrupt” sites.
‘Why did he do that? There is a long answer, ‘she wrote. “But there is a short answer, a conclusion: he did it to become famous.”
Molloy also noted that the accused did not commit suicide. Instead, his desire to die by policeman is seen as the culmination of his broader goals.
Defense attorneys argued that the accused’s autism spectrum disorder impedes his ability to understand the wrongness of his actions and that he should not be held criminally responsible for his actions.
In her verdict, Molloy found that the accused had fantasized for years about committing the crime. While thinking about how it might affect his family, he ‘deliberately set aside these thoughts and ignored them because he did not want them to stop him from achieving this important goal’.
In Canada, a person who is not considered criminally liable is institutionalized indefinitely until they can prove that they are no longer a risk to the public.
The trial was streamed live on YouTube due to the pandemic, but relatives of several victims gathered outside the Ontario High Court in Toronto to hear the verdict.
“You hold your breath for three years,” said Nick D’Amico, the brother of Anne Marie D’Amico, who died in the attack. “And now you can finally breathe.”