Alek Minassian, a radicalised “Incel” who killed ten people in a van attack in downtown Toronto in April of 2018, has been sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
The Superior court in Toronto handed down the sentence to Minassian on Monday, with Justice Anne Molloy sentencing Minassian to life in prison with no parole for 25 years after he was found guilty last year of ten counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.
A total of eight women and two men died immediately following the attack, which took place on April 23rd of 2018 and another victim, Amaresh Tesfamariam, died three years after the attack in November of last year and had been hospitalised for that entire period, CBC reports.
Minassian initially pled not guilty to the murders in November of 2020, with his lawyer Boris Bytensky arguing that his client was not responsible due to his state of mind at the time of the attack.
Following his arrest, Minassian had told investigators, “I feel like I accomplished my mission,” and spoke of his participation in an online subculture known as “Incels”, short for involuntarily celibate.
Some Incel groups and communities have been linked to other attacks and much of the anger of member of those communities are directed at women. Minassian himself admitted that he used the van in the attack in order to inspire others to carry out attacks and spoke of an “Incel Rebellion” on social media minutes prior to his attack.
During the sentencing of Minassian, Judge Molloy noted that the sentence was not a 25-year sentence but a life sentence despite the fact that Minassian will be eligible to apply for parole in 25 years, she stated that the enormity of his crime will be considered in any parole hearing.
Previously, Crown prosecutors had wanted to seek consecutive life sentences for Minassian during his trial, which was held in 2020 but the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last month that it was unconstitutional for judges to apply sentences consecutively rather than concurrently.
The sentencing of Minassian had been postponed for over a year until after the Supreme Court ruling and some of the victims of the attack expressed outrage at the ruling itself.
Cathy Riddell, one of the victims of Minassian’s attack expressed anger that the court ruled consecutive life terms met the definition of cruel and unusual punishment stating, “I’ll tell you what cruel and unusual punishment is.”
“It’s an innocent person being murdered. It’s an innocent person being maimed or an innocent person having their life ripped apart. That is cruel and unusual punishment,” she said and added, “I’m ashamed of our country. And I’m ashamed of our court system for doing what they did.”
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