Nathaniel Veltman, accused murderer of four Muslim family members in London, is currently on trial. Details about the incident, victims, and killer explored.
A Muslim girl, 15, her parents, and her grandmother died after they were “deliberately” mowed down on Sunday night as they took an evening stroll in the Ontario city of London.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has branded the killing of four members of a Muslim family as a “terrorist attack”.
Cops said then 20-year-old Veltman jumped the curb in his truck, smashing into five members of the family – ranging in age from 9 to 74 – and then fled the scene of carnage at high speed.
The killer Nathaniel Veltman is currently on trial and video of the moments before a self-identified white nationalist allegedly slammed into a family, killing four people, was played to the jury.
Who is Nathaniel Veltman?
Nathaniel Veltman is a 22 year old self-identified white nationalist who is accused of murdering four family members.
Veltman lived in an apartment on Covent Market Place in downtown London.
Veltman worked as a part-time shipping employee Gray Ridge Egg Farms, an egg-packing facility in nearby Strathroy, Ont.In a statement on the company’s website, Gray Ridge Eggs Inc. CEO William H. Gray said management and staff at the facility “were shocked and saddened” to find out one of their employees had been accused in the murders.
“We join our community in expressing condemnation of this violent attack and offer our heartfelt sympathy to the family and the Muslim community,” Gray continued in the statement.
An image provided by CTV News confirmed Veltman was an athlete who participated in the St. Clair River Run, a half-marathon, 10-kilometre and five-kilometre road race along the St. Clair River in Sombra and Port Lambton, Ont, when he was a teenager.
At the time of this gruesome murder, he was 20 years old and it occured on June 6, 2021.
A surveillance footage captured Nathaniel Veltman allegedly targeting a family of five because he was “looking for Muslims to kill,” according to prosecutors.
He has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
The London Free Press named the victims as Syed Afzaal, 46, his wife, Madiha Salman, 44, and their 15-year-old daughter, Yumnah Afzaal.
Syed Afzaal’s 74-year-old mother, Talat Afzaal, was also killed.
Afzaal and Salman’s nine-year-old son, Faez Afzaal, survived but was severely injured.
Who are the Afzaal family?
The Afzaal family consists of 6 members who are Muslims. This is made of a man named Syded Afzaal, his wife, Madiha Salman, their children Yumnah Afzaal and Faez Afzaal, and his mother, Talat Afzaal.
A friend of the family, Zahid Khan, told the Associated Press the family immigrated from Pakistan about 14 years ago.
“They were just out for their walk that they would go out for every day,” he said through tears near the crash scene.
They lived in London, which has about 400,000 residents. It has a large Muslim community and Arabic is the second-most-spoken language after English in the city.
Four members of the family, excluding the son, Faez, were murdered by now 22-year-old man Veltman.
The attack was the worst against Canadian Muslims since a man gunned down six members of a Quebec City mosque in 2017.
A GoFundMe campaign in support of the victims’ family raised almost C$120,000 ($99,000) in just one hour.
And in Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack, saying it indicated “growing Islamophobia” in Western countries.
“Islamophobia needs to be countered holistically by the international community,” he said on Twitter.
What did Nathaniel Veltman do the Afzaal family?
Video has emerged of the moments before a Veltman allegedly slammed into a family, killing four people.
In the footage, jurors could see the family of five walking near an intersection in London, Ontario.
Prosecutors say Veltman, 22, was behind the wheel of a black Dodge Ram pickup that is seen driving along the road as the family stands near the intersection.
The truck made a U-turn and was then seen on camera speeding in the direction of the family.
The court edited the video so that the footage stopped before it showed the truck hitting the family.
Prosecutor Sarah Shaikh told a jury that Veltman planned his attack for three months before running the family over with his truck.
Shaikh alleges that Veltman went “pedal to the metal” and drove his car onto the curb, striking his victims “because they were Muslims.”
She said that before the crash, the 22-year-old studied white nationalists and allegedly identified as one in his manifesto.
“I don’t regret what I did. I admit that it was terrorism. This was politically motivated, 100 percent,” Veltman allegedly told detectives after his arrest.
Veltman was said to have worn body armor and a helmet and had bladed weapons hidden in the truck at the time of the attack.
After allegedly targeting the family, the accused murderer approached a taxi driver and told him to call the police.
“It’s me. It was me that did it,” Veltman allegedly told the driver.
“Tell them I did it and come and arrest me.”
A second video showed Veltman walking away from the black truck in a parking lot with his hands behind his head as cops swooped in and arrested him.
Where is Nathaniel Veltman now?
Veltman pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder, along with terror charges in connection to the crash.
Nathaniel Veltman, 22, is on trial, which is taking place in Ontario Superior Court in Windsor, Canada, for allegedly killing four members of a family because they were Muslim.
The trial is expected to last eight weeks.
If found guilty, he will serves years in jail.