Incel sword slayer to be sentenced as terrorist
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In a precedent-setting decision, a judge has ruled the youth who brutally slashed a North York massage parlour receptionist 42 times with a sword in the name of the “incel rebellion” will be sentenced as a terrorist.
It’s the first time in Canada that the terror provisions in the Criminal Code will apply to someone who committed a crime on behalf of an ideology and not a religion.
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Ontario Superior Court Justice Suhail Akhtar released his “bottom-line” decision to the lawyers Tuesday morning and said his reasons for the ruling will follow. The killer, who can only be identified as O.S. under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was scheduled to appear for a sentencing hearing on June 12 but that date has now been postponed at the request of his lawyers.
Prosecutors have indicated they’ll seek to have O.S. sentenced as an adult and the judge’s finding may now have an impact on that decision.
Terrorist activity is also considered an aggravating factor in sentencing.
O.S., now 20, pleaded guilty last September to first-degree murder and in the Feb. 24, 2020 slaying of Ashley Arzaga, a 24-year-old mother and the attempted murder of her colleague.
In the agreed statement read out at his guilty plea, the friendless 17-year-old high school dropout admitted immersing himself in the misogynistic online world of incels; on the Steam gaming platform, his profile name was “The Killer” in Arabic and he described himself as a “proud incel,” “seeker of martyrdom” and a hater of “feminists/atheists/satanists and all kinds of other degenerates.”
O.S. purchased a 43-cm sword on Amazon and engraved it by hand with the words “THOT slayer” — an acronym for “That hoe over there,” the incel slang for slut, and was hoping that after his attack, he’d be killed by police and become another martyr to the movement.
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Arzaga was filling in at the reception desk when the killer walked in at 12:34 p.m. and slashed her more than three dozen times.
Another employee, who can’t be identified, heard Arzaga’s screams and found her brutalized body in a pool of blood. When she tried to run, O.S. chased and slashed her, yelling, “You f——whore“, “you f——bitch,” “die, die, die.”
Instead, she wrestled the sword away and stabbed him in the back.
O.S. will appear in court next month to set a new sentencing date.
If the judge agrees to sentence him as an adult for the murder, O.S. is liable to life imprisonment without parole for 10 years. If sentenced as a youth, the maximum is a 10-year term.
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