The first man to be charged with terrorism in Canada after a gender-based attack was sentenced to life in prison by the courts on Tuesday for killing a woman and wounding another in Toronto in 2020. The man, who was a minor at the time of the crime, was convicted of Pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder.
The now 21-year-old teenager attacked the two women in a massage parlor with a short sword, killing receptionist Ashley Arzaga and seriously injuring another employee. When he was arrested, police found a handwritten note in his pocket calling for an “incel” uprising and a misogynistic inscription on his bladed weapon. The masculinist movement of “Incels”, an English abbreviation meaning “involuntary celibate”, expresses online its hatred in particular towards women, whom they believe are responsible for their sexual dissatisfaction.
“Motivated by incel ideology”
The defendant, who was 17 at the time of the attack, “was motivated by incel ideology and wanted to send a message to society that incels were willing to kill and commit acts of violence,” the judge said. Suhail Akhtar of the Ontario Superior Court, according to the Canadian Press. “The filmed murder of Ms. Arzaga testifies to the devastating consequences of this ideology,” he added, specifying that the defendant “did not just murder Ms. Arzaga. He massacred them.” The court sentenced the young man to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for ten years.
Incels made headlines in Canada in April 2018 when a man claiming to belong to the movement killed 10 people – mostly women – and injured 14 others in a truck attack in Toronto. Alek Minassian was sentenced to life in prison last year for the murders but was not charged with terrorism. Canada had experienced other misogynistic attacks before, most notably on December 6, 1989, the first alleged mass murder of women. Marc Lépine, who declared in a message that he hated feminists, killed 14 young women at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal.