Van ploughs into crowd
> 10 killed, suspect arrested in Toronto
TORONTO: At least 10 people died after a man ploughed a rental van into a crowd of pedestrians in Canada’s biggest city Toronto on Monday, in what police dubbed a deliberate attack.
The incident took place in broad daylight 16km from a conference centre hosting a meeting of G7 ministers, but officials said they had no evidence of a link to the event.
“The actions definitely looked deliberate,” Toronto police chief Mark Saunders said.
Minister of public security Ralph Goodale said: “On the basis of all available information at the present time, there would appear to be no national security connection to this particular incident.”
“Horrible day in Toronto,” he had posted earlier on Twitter. “Senseless violence takes heavy toll.” Police arrested a suspect at the scene – whom they later identified as 25-year-old Alek Minassian from a northern Toronto suburb – of the attack, whose initial death toll of nine jumped to 10 after one person succumbed to injuries.
Fifteen people remained in hospitals throughout the city, Saunders said, adding that local, provincial and federal investigators were probing the case.
Two South Koreans were among the dead, a foreign ministry official in Seoul said, with another seriously injured.
At the scene, at least three bodies could be seen under orange sheets and a long stretch of road was sealed off.
The suspect and a police officer faced off, their guns drawn. The suspect eventually surrendered his weapon and was taken into custody.
Vehicle attacks have been carried out to deadly effect by extremists in a number of capitals and major cities, including London, Paris, New York and Nice.
Canada’s foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said the G7 meeting would continue as planned, with officials discussing ways to secure democratic societies from foreign interference.
Officers were called to the scene on Yonge Street at around 1.30pm (1.30am yesterday in Malaysia), police said.
A white rental van with a dented front bumper was stopped on the sidewalk of a major intersection, surrounded by police vehicles.
“He was going really fast,” witness Alex Shaker told CTV television.
“All I could see was just people one by one getting knocked out, knocked out, one by one,” Shaker said.
“There are so many people lying down on the streets.”
Another witness, Jamie Eopni, told local TV station CP24: “It was crashing into everything. It destroyed a bench. If anybody was on that street, they would have been hit.” – AFP