Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
The laying of terror-related charges against the man accused of killing four people in London, Ont. could mark a new precedent in how Canada prosecutes those accused of terrorist activity, legal experts say.
"I think you will likely see more motivation, and more push from governments, to lay these type of charges," Trevin David, a criminal defence lawyer based in Toronto, told CTV's Your Morning on Tuesday.
Four members of the Afzaal family were killed June 6 when they were hit by a vehicle while out for a walk in their neighbourhood.
Nathaniel Veltman, 20, was arrested shortly after and charged with four-counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. Police have said that they believe Veltman did not know the family, but targeted them with his vehicle because of their Muslim faith.
Although many, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, quickly labelled Veltman's actions a terrorist attack, it was not clear for more than a week whether Veltman would be accused of any offences related to terrorism.
That changed on Monday, when Veltman was informed during a court hearing that prosecutors have received all the necessary approvals to pursue terrorism charges against him. It is not clear which specific charges may be laid.
A 2018 report from Public Safety Canada states that as of that year, 55 individuals had been charged with terrorism-related offences since they became a specific part of the Criminal Code in 2001.
However, David said that terror charges have only been applied to a murder case once before. Last year, Toronto man Saad Akhtar was charged with first-degree murder and a terrorism charge in connection with allegations that he killed a woman with a hammer.
Legal experts say the rarity of terrorism charges being applied in murder cases stems from their holding the Crown to an additional burden of proof without affecting the potential sentence of the accused in any reasonable way.
The maximum penalty for a murder found to have a terroristic motivation is life in prison with no ability to apply for parole for 25 years – exactly the same as the maximum penalty for first-degree murder.
Toronto-based criminal defence lawyer Monte MacGregor told CTV News Channel on Monday that adding the terror charges to Veltman's case allows prosecutors to pursue "two routes of criminal liability," giving them a fallback plan if they are not able to prove the planning and deliberation needed for a first-degree murder conviction.
"It makes sense that it's gone in this direction," he said.
Veltman, who does not yet have a lawyer, next appears in court June 21.
Convicting Veltman of first-degree murder requires the Crown to prove that his actions were planned and deliberate. To convict him of terror offences, the Crown will have to prove that his attack was spurred by ideological or political motivations.
"Given how novel this kind of charge is in Canada, how rarely used, it doesn't much add to the prosecution – but it certainly satiates a lot of Canadians' desire to see this labelled as a terrorist attack," Toronto-based criminal defence lawyer Ari Goldkind said Monday on CTV News Channel.
That extra burden of proof may help explain why terror charges were never pursued in the case of Quebec City mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette, Toronto van attacker Alek Minassian, or Abdulahai Sharif, who rammed four pedestrians with a truck and stabbed a police officer in Edmonton in 2017.
"[Sharif] had an ISIS flag in the cab of his truck, but he wasn't charged with terrorism. He was charged with multiple counts of attempted murder," Mubin Shaikh, a public safety professor at Seneca College in Toronto, told CTV News Channel on Monday.
Legal experts point to two reasons for the different approach to prosecuting Veltman: pressure from politicians and the public to put Canada's terrorism laws to use in this case, and the speed with which police revealed that they believe he was motivated by hatred.
"I would speculate that they must have got some information very quickly from Mr. Veltman himself, either an admission or a confession," MacGregor said.
"They likely feel that his own assertions [and] whatever evidence was found, that's really going to drive the nature of the prosecution here."
Beyond that, the court proceedings against Veltman will likely shape how terrorist activity in Canada is prosecuted for decades to come.
Though he was never charged with any terrorism offences, Bissonnette was handed the longest sentence in Canadian history – life in prison with no parole eligibility for 40 years. That sentence was reduced on appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada will have final say later this year.
Similarly, David said that if Veltman is convicted, his sentence will likely be appealed by either his lawyer or the Crown, in an attempt to convince a higher court to set a precedent more to their liking.
And just as Bissonnette's fate remains before the courts more than four years after his attack, appeals would mean that Veltman's final sentence will stay shrouded in uncertainty for quite some time.
"What that means for this family … is unfortunately that this case may not have the closure that they would otherwise hope to receive at the conclusion of this trial," David said.
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
The Parole Board of Canada has granted full parole to one of three men convicted in the brutal murders of three McDonald's restaurant workers in Cape Breton more than 30 years ago.
Calgary police shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers dealt with a distraught individual. The incident lasted almost 20 hours.
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
A spokesman for a regional Muslim advocacy group says Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's stance on the Israel-Hamas war could complicate his party's relationship with Muslim Canadians.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.