Murder trial for Toronto van attack suspect set for November
The trial of a Canadian man accused of killing 10 people by plowing a van
into pedestrians in Toronto was set Wednesday to be held in November.
Alek Minassian, 27, was charged with 10 counts of premeditated murder and 16 counts of attempted murder following the attack in April 2018.
The trial, starting on November 9, will be heard by judge alone, and will consider his state of mind during the attack, not whether he did it, Justice John McMahon said.
The trial had been set to start in February but was twice delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Minassian was found immediately following the attacks standing by the rented van with its front end mangled and behaving erratically, video footage aired at the time showed.
During a four-hour interrogation, he described anger he felt toward women and said this had motivated the attack.
He said he had joined an online community of likeminded men who described themselves as "incels," whose sexual frustrations led them to embrace a misogynist ideology.
A 17-year-old accused of murdering a woman at a massage parlour in a separate case became the first person in Canada to be charged with terrorism last month over his suspected ties to the misogynist "incel" movement.
Minassian, however, has not been charged with terrorism.
His trial is expected to last at least four weeks.
