A new case law has just entered the legal annals of Canada. The young OS, who had already been labeled a terrorist by the judge due to his connection to incels, was sentenced to life in prison for premeditated murder at a massage parlor in Toronto in 2020.
The judge sentenced him to adulthood, but still took his age at the time into account, so that the 21-year-old can be released on parole after ten years and not after 25 years.
Attention : Reading this text may shock some readers.
OS pleaded guilty in September 2022 to two counts of murder and attempted murder against the victim and survivor of the attack he carried out on behalf of the incel movement.
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The Young Offenders Act prevents us from revealing the identity of OS, who was 17 at the time of the alleged offences.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Pam Davies
Incels (involuntary celibates or abstainers against their will) are people who attack women because of their sexual frustrations.
OS’s identity is protected because he was 17 at the time. The judge said he would turn 18 six months after the attack.
To date, no person in the country has been convicted of being a member of incels. The term terrorism has so far only been applied to religious ideologies in the country.
However, OS was never charged with terrorism, but police had described the attack as an ideologically motivated violent extremist movement that hit the Spa Crown massage parlor on February 24, 2020.
In the living room, police discovered the 24-year-old victim as well as a man and a woman who had survived the attack. The second woman was seriously injured.
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The victim of the terrorist attack, Ashley Noell Arzaga.
Photo: Radio-Canada / CBC
OS had used a long knife with the words “Whore Hunter” engraved on it. A note was also found in his coat stating that the incel uprising had begun.
In his ruling, Ontario Superior Court Justice Suhail Akhtar said a juvenile sentence, as the defense had hoped, would not be enough because he was acting like an adult at the time of the attack.
He had the maturity to commit his cruel and misogynistic crime with hidden motives to sow fear in society, he said in a detailed verdict.
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The exterior of the crime scene at the Crown Spa massage parlor on February 24, 2020 in north Toronto. (archive photo)
Photo: Radio-Canada / Michael Cole
The judge also doubts that OS was brainwashed by visiting incels in chat rooms, as he claimed during psychiatric examinations in custody.
He used the ideology of incels to justify the violence of his crime, he emphasizes, thereby siding with the Crown, which not only wanted an adult sentence, but also qualified it as a terrorist act to characterize the murder and called for attempted murder.
It was a premeditated murder linked to a terrorist attack, added the judge, who recalled that OS was inspired by Alek Minassian in Canada and Elliot Rodger in California.
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Alek Minassian, at the police station on April 23, 2018, has since been sentenced to life in prison without eligibility for parole for 25 years for the Ram truck attack in Toronto. (archive photo)
Photo: Office of the Attorney General of Ontario
The difference in sentence would therefore have been very different if OS had been sentenced to a juvenile sentence, as a conviction for terrorism can result in a life sentence without eligibility for parole before 25 years, while a conviction for premeditated murder for a minor only leads to 10 years old.
However, only one disadvantage. The judge accepts that OS will be eligible for parole 10 years earlier than expected due to his limited abilities due to his anxiety, depression and autism disorders.
Because of the time he has spent in custody since his arrest, OS will be eligible to apply for parole in six years. He will now be transferred to a federal prison.
More details to follow.