‘He made a choice’: Alek Minassian guilty of 10 counts of first-degree murder in Yonge St. van attack
The man who planned and carried out the Yonge St. van attack is criminally responsible for his actions, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy found Alek Minassian guilty of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.
Minassian thought about committing these crimes over a considerable period of time and made a considered decision to proceed. His attack on these 26 victims that day was an act of a reasoning mind," she said. Notwithstanding it's horrific nature, and nothwithstanding that he has no remorse for it and no remorse for his victims."
He made a choice," Molloy said. He chose to commit the crimes anyway because it was what he really wanted to do."
On the afternoon of April 23, 2018, Minassian slammed the accelerator" of a rented van and sped onto a Yonge Street sidewalk directly at a group of pedestrians waiting at the intersection.
There was no warning," said the agreed statement of facts. People were not prepared for such an attack."
Over the next four minutes, Minassian deliberately drove into 26 people, killing eight women and two men and leaving carnage and trauma in his wake.
He has admitted to reserving a van and, weeks later, using it for his attack, leaving Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy to rule not on whether Minassian, 28, planned and carried out Toronto's worst mass killing, but on if he is criminally responsible.
The verdict is being live-streamed on YouTube starting at 10 a.m.
During a six-week trial held over Zoom late last year, Minassian's lawyers argued he is not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder, specifically autism spectrum disorder.
It is the first time in Canada that autism spectrum disorder alone - with no co-occurring disorders - has been used as a basis for a not criminally responsible defence. The trial heard evidence that no autistic person is the same, and that the disorder can manifest in very different ways.
Justice Molloy had to determine if Minassian's manifestation of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) meets the criteria to be considered a mental disorder for the purpose of a not criminally responsible defence - the Crown has argued it does not.
She then had to determine whether he knew what he was doing was morally wrong.
Minassian repeatedly told psychiatrists that he was aware at the time of the attack that his actions were wrong and unjustifiable by society's standards.
What I did was morally wrong. And extremely devastating. And irreversible," Minassian told defence psychiatrist Dr. Alexander Westphal in an interview. It is extremely wrong to kill people."
The Crown argued Minassian clearly demonstrated in interviews with psychiatrists and through psychological testing the ability to morally reason and distinguish right from wrong. Crown psychiatrist Dr. Scott Woodside suggested that the extreme moral wrongfulness of Minassian's actions was part of his stated motivation: a desire for infamy.
Minassian's lawyer Boris Bytensky argued that Minassian's ability to morally reason is impaired by his autism, which a defence psychiatrist testified made him unable to really understand how his actions affect other people. Minassian wasn't able to know" what he did was wrong, because he did not have the capacity to make a rational choice about his actions in the moment, Bytensky argued.
In closing remarks at the end of the trial, Justice Molloy stressed that generalizations about autistic people and autism should not be made based on the evidence heard at the trial.
The issue at trial is not whether people with ASD do not know right from wrong," she said. The issue at this trial is whether the particular impact of ASD on this particular person at this particular point in time was such that he should be not criminally responsible for his actions."
Even so, autistic people and advocacy organizations remain fearful that the case will perpetuate harmful misconceptions, though autism is not linked with violence and autistic people are more likely to be law-abiding and victims of crime.
In the court of public opinion, autism is now on trial," said writer Sarah Kurchak, who is autistic, in an interview with CBC's Day 6.
The debate about whether or not we have empathy. The debate about whether or not we're inherently violent. The debate about whether or not we can apparently just get off or whatever crimes we commit (when) we're usually more likely to be the victims of than the perpetrators in real life."
Kurchak's concerns are shared by Michau van Speyk, who is autistic and an advocate for people with autism, and knew one of the people killed by Minassian.
I feel like people are going to judge people with autism even more so and they are going to be afraid of us," he said. Meanwhile, he said, there are other pressing issues that need attention, including funding early therapies, supportive housing and ensuring resources are available for young adults with autism to excel.
Anita Szigeti, a prominent lawyer specializing in mental health law and co-author of the Guide to Mental Disorder Law in Canadian Criminal Justice said the legal approach argued by the defence could somewhat push the boundaries of the not criminally responsible (NCR) test through exploring what it means to be able to make a rational choice.
It's not creating a new path to NCR, but just putting more flesh on the bones of it, fleshing it out more completely than we've seen in the case law," she said.
This is not a clear-cut case," she added.
Historically, she said, NCR law has been focused on cases involving psychosis or specific delusions. But there are emerging areas of research looking at how, for example, an acquired brain injury can affect decision-making. The law evolves based on evolving science and the law has to be responsive to what the science tells us," she said.
Szigeti said she understands the fears expressed by people with autism about being wrongly associated with dangerousness and violence, fears which are shared by people with psychotic disorders. However, it's also important not to stigmatize not criminally responsible verdicts which exist to ensure fairness for people who are not responsible for their actions in the moment due to a mental disorder, she said.
We have to re-emphasize that NCR itself does not equate to dangerousness in a class of people at all, or even dangerousness in a person necessarily," she said, speaking generally.
Whether science is new, whether the experts are duelling, whether the offences are of a particularly heinous nature with incredible tragic loss of life, at the end of the day the question is about fairness and do we incarcerate someone who did not have the capacity for rational, moral agency?"
Minassian faces ten counts of first-degree murder for killing Ji Hun Kim and So He Chung, both 22; Anne Marie D'Amico, 30; Andrea Bradden, 33; Chul Min (Eddie) Kang, 45; Renuka Amarasingha, 45; Dorothy Sewell, 80; Geraldine (Gerry) Brady, 83; Munir Najjar, 85; and Betty Forsyth, 94. He faces an additional 16 counts of attempted murder, including for nearly killing Catherine Riddell.
Riddell said she is relieved the case is almost over though nothing will ever make it right."
She watched the entire trial and, in her view, Minassian should be found guilty.
He understood exactly what he was doing," she said. And she agreed with the Crown that whether or not he can feel empathy for the people he harmed shouldn't make a difference - it's not uncommon for mass killers.
Regardless of the verdict, Minassian likely faces a long time in an institution.
If Minassian were to be found not criminally responsible, he would be sent to a psychiatric hospital indefinitely.
If he is found guilty, he faces an automatic life sentence in prison. In that case, the only question for the court would be how long before he could apply for parole. One count of first-degree murder comes with an automatic parole ineligibility period of 25 years, and it would be up to the judge to determine how much longer that period should be.
Following the criminal process questions remain about Minassian's motivations and the impact of his time spent in misogynist online forums. In his initial police interview, he claimed to be an incel - a misogynist online community of men that believe they are being unfairly denied sex - and that he was trying to start an uprising against society. Incels have been labelled a ideologically motivated violent extremist movement" by the RCMP.
In later interviews with psychiatrists he walked that back, claiming he latched onto the incel narrative to garner maximum attention. He also described other motivations including a desire for record-breaking kill count," isolation, anxiety about starting a new job and periodic fantasies about school shootings. Though he told one psychiatrist he wished he killed more women, he also denied feeling rage or hatred towards women.
Researchers who study violent extremism say these questions should be examined in order to prevent such an attack from happening again.
Alyshah Hasham is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and court for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @alysanmati