The admitted white nationalist who killed a Muslim family said he was inspired by neo-Nazi terrorists and anti-Muslim rhetoric he found on conspiracy websites like Infowars.
Nathaniel Veltman, 22, is on his fifth day of testifying in the trial where he is facing four first-degree murder charges, one charge of an attempted murder charge, as well as terrorist charges. Veltman has pleaded not guilty to the charges but does not dispute that he ran down the family and wrote a racist manifesto just weeks before the killings. In a anti-Muslim screed he wrote before the killings, and in a police interrogation which was shown to the jury, Veltman said he hoped to inspire more white nationalist vehicle attacks.
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On June 6, 2021, the accused, driving a pickup truck, ran down a family who were waiting to cross a street in London, Ontario, killing four of five of them. Salman Afzaal, 46, his wife Madiha Salman, 44, their 15-year-old daughter Yumna Afzaal, and Salman Afzaal’s 74-year-old mother, Talat Afzaal, were all killed in the attack—only the family’s nine-year-old son survived.
During his cross-examination by the Crown Tuesday, Veltman said that he fell into white nationalist beliefs after falling down a radicalization pipeline,
“I consumed libertarian content, mainstream conservative content,” he said on the stand. “Then I slowly started looking at some alt-right content on YouTube, and then stumbled across some of the more fringe.”
The content he described focused on the Great Replacement—a po
pular conspiracy theory among the far-right focused on minorities taking over white majority countries—and the idea that Muslim violence is under-covered by mainstream media. He said that he consumed conspiratorial content like Alex Jones’ Infowars where he found “conspiracies that Middle Eastern wars were a conspiracy to try to bring Muslim immigration into Europe.” This then led him to white nationalist content.
Veltman has testified that he was inspired by the man who killed 52 Muslim people in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2018. Veltman had downloaded the rambling screed the mass murderer had written before the massacre as well as the livestreamed video of the mass killing. On the stand, Veltman attempted to portray the manifesto he wrote, which he dubbed “A White Awakening,” as not a true portrayal of his politics.
During the trial it was learned that shortly before he killed the family in London, Veltman was in Toronto and had an urge to “step on the gas” when he saw a Muslim family but did not go through with the attack. Veltman said he was “horrified” but “didn’t tell anyone what was going on.”
“(This) is because you wanted to follow through on this plan,” Crown Attorney Jennifer Moser stated. “If you had told anybody what was going on you would have been caught and stopped.”
On the day of the killings, Veltman denied that he went out on the day with the intention of conducting murders despite the fact he had written a manifesto, put on a military helmet, a bulletproof vest, and a white shirt with a cross on it that was a reference to an online meme about crusaders killing Muslims.
In his interview with police after the actions, he described the child he hit with the truck as “collateral damage.” On the stand, two years later, Veltman said he was remorseful for his actions.
Veltman and his defense have been attempting to portray the 22-year-old as someone who was taken by far-right propaganda, undiagnosed mental illness, and drug use. They have attempted to tie his use of magic mushrooms the night before the mass murder as a way to exonerate his actions. A majority of the defense examination of Veltman was focused on his extremely religious upbringing and his relationship with his controlling mother.
The trial continues on Thursday as the cross-examination of Veltman continues.
