The first man charged in Canada with terrorism after a gender-related attack was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday by the courts for killing a woman and injuring another in Toronto in 2020. The young man, whose identity was not revealed because he was a minor at the time of the events, had pleaded guilty to the charges of murder and attempted murder.
The teenager, now 21, used a short sword to attack the two women in a massage parlor, killing receptionist Ashley Arzaga and seriously injuring another employee.
During his arrest, the police found a handwritten note in his pocket calling for “incel” rebellion and a misogynistic inscription on his bladed weapon. The masculinist movement of “incels”, an English abbreviation which means “involuntarily celibate”, expresses online in particular their hatred of women, responsible according to them for their sexual dissatisfaction.
Young woman “massacred”
The accused, 17 years old at the time of the attack, “was motivated by incel ideology and wanted to send a message to society that incels were ready to kill and commit acts of violence,” the judge said. Suhail Akhtar, of the Superior Court of Ontario, according to the Canadian press.
“The murder of Ms. Arzaga, filmed, testifies to the ravages of this ideology,” he added, specifying that the accused “did not just assassinate Ms. Arzaga. He massacred her.”
The court sentenced the young man to life in prison without the possibility of parole for ten years.
“Incels” made headlines in Canada in April 2018 when a man claiming to belong to this movement killed 10 people – mainly women – and injured 14 others during a truck attack in Toronto. Alek Minassian was sentenced to life in prison last year for the murders, but has not been charged with terrorism.
Canada had already experienced other misogynistic attacks, notably on December 6, 1989, the first claimed mass feminicide. Marc Lépine, who explained in a message that he hated feminists, had killed 14 young women at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal.