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The Nathaniel Veltman trial continued Wednesday with testimony from a digital forensics expert who was asked by London police to examine the data found on digital devices in Veltman's apartment on June 12, 2021.
The search was initiated six days after four members of a Muslim family were killed when they were hit by a Dodge Ram pickup truck at Hyde Park and South Carriage Roads in London.
Talat Afzaal, 74, her son Salman Afzaal, 46, his wife Madiha Salman, 44, and their daughter Yumnah, 15, were all killed on June 6. Their young son was the only survivor.
Windsor police Sergeant Liyu Guan told the jury on Tuesday that someone named Nate was the owner and user of the recovered laptop computer based on the Windows identification information.
On the laptop, he also found several emails and files with Veltman's name, along with credit card information, a Fanshawe College project with Veltman's name, as well as a file with an early draft of a manifesto titled "The White Awakening."
Guan's testimony continued on Wednesday with Crown lawyer Sarah Shaikh asking about one of the USBs recovered from Veltman's apartment.
Shaikh showed a screenshot to the courtroom, taken by Guan, of the contents of the USB. There were five files on the device, which was found by the Sergeant to belong to Veltman.
The first file was redacted.
The second file was titled '111'. Guan explained that it was a video of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He said the video had been downloaded on February 15, 2021 and had been accessed 17 times between then and June 6, 2021.
The third file contained the manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the New Zealand shooter, and was downloaded at the same time as the video. Guan said that the file had been renamed, from 'The Great Replacement' to 'ool'. He added that the file had been viewed 12 times between February 15 and June 6.
The fourth file was titled 'Torrent with love from Kiwi Farms'.
The fifth was a downloaded video of an individual shooting others, from the first person point-of-view.
Shaikh showed the jury a screenshot of the title page of 'The Great Replacement' and asked whether Guan had read the manifesto, to which he confirmed that he had.
Shaikh then began questioning Guan about the analysis of the cell phone seized from Veltman's apartment.
Guan said that he determined that the cell phone did belong to Veltman through the ownership papers, through 29 photos of a passport and driver's licence issued to "Nathaniel Adam Richard Veltman", and through multiple emails.
Guan described screenshots of a number of emails as ones that he'd taken, including one from 'Guardian Outfitters' confirming Veltman's purchase of a bulletproof vest. There were also two partially recovered emails that had been deleted from 'Canadian Armour Ltd.' one of which had a photo attachment of his passport and drivers licence.
Guan told the jury that he'd also found a different manifesto downloaded to Veltman's phone. This one belonged to Anders Behring Breivik, who Guan said was " the person responsible for the mass shooting in Norway in 2011".
Shaikh then moved on to the second USB found in Veltman's apartment. A screenshot showed to the jury featured two files on the USB. The first was a pdf titled 'A White Awakening - Notepad' the second was a text file also titled 'A White Awakening'. Guan explained that these two files contained the exact same thing and were also found on the external hard drive taken from Veltman's apartment.
Shaikh then read an agreed upon statement of fact stating that "Mr. Veltman is the author of all versions of the White Awakening."
Guan explained the evolution of the document through what he saw on the laptop, USB, and hard drive.
He said a file called 'idk' was created on May 4, 2021. The file was next accessed on June 1, 2021 at 5:36 a.m. and the size of the document was increased to 69,355 characters (this includes letters, numbers, and spaces). Later that same day, at 2:49 p.m. the document was renamed and saved as 'A White Awakening'.
Guan said that 'A White Awakening' was then accessed again on June 1 and June 5.
When asked if had read the manifesto, Guan replied that he had. Shaikh then read parts of it out for the jury.
The manifesto opened by Veltman saying these are his "political views" and that "I keep changing my mind about what I want to say."
"Ideology is stupid, it means nothing," Veltman wrote at one point, later on saying "Nationalism is the only ideology that makes any sense."
He went on to denounce multiculturalism and mass immigration and claimed that white people are being "replaced."
"I am a white nationalist," Veltman wrote. "Why am I a white nationalist? Because I believe countries of European descent and people of European descent have the right to exist."
Veltman then wrote about his perceived definition of racism and creating a new society.
Shaikh said the manifesto ended with the words "Europa arises." This echoed the ending of Tarrant's manifesto which read "Europa rises." In interviews with police, Veltman called the New Zealand shooter one of his "inspirations."
After the reading from 'A White Awakening' Justice Renee Pomerance gave another mid-trial instruction. She said that she expects the jurors will find the content of the manifesto deeply disturbing, but they can't base their decisions on the emotions Veltman's words or views may evoke. She added that they can't convict him "because you want to take a stand against racism."
Following a lunch break, Shaikh introduced a timeline that combined all five of Guan's reports (one for each device analyzed) in chronological order.
Guan then re-established the timeline for the jury starting at 4:30 p.m. February 15, 2021 when Veltman downloaded and opened the New Zealand shooting video and ending at 7:50 p.m. on June 6, 2021 when a USB was removed from Veltman's laptop.
Following an afternoon break, defence lawyer Christopher Hicks began his cross-examination of Sgt. Guan.
Hicks asked about "Andrew Isaac" a name related to credit card information found in the laptop's browsing history. Guan replied that he did find that credit card information and some reference to that name on YouTube, but there's nothing that corroborates that this person would be another user of the laptop.
Hicks asked several questions pertaining to the physical seizure of the laptop, which Guan was unable to answer as he only examined the laptop up to June 6.
Hicks also had Guan confirm that while he could see what time files and videos had been opened and closed he couldn't say the length of time those files or videos were viewed.
After a very brief re-examination by Shaikh Guan was dismissed.
Veltman has pleaded not guilty to four counts of terrorism-motivated first degree murder, and one count of terrorism-motivated attempted murder.
Court will resume at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
-with files from Paul Pedro