Criminal Law Update: Progress in Toronto, Winnipeg Charges, and Sentencing Developments
- Rochelle Direnfeld
- Jul 25
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 29
Week of July 21, 2025.
New Criminal Charges in Toronto
Over the past year, ALCCA has urged law enforcement across the country to familiarize themselves with the full range of existing criminal measures to address hate-motivated crimes and protests that unlawfully interfere with infrastructure, including our roads and intersections. Our training and education for police services across the country, which includes case scenario work, emphasizes the availability of these measures not only to combat antisemitism, but all forms of hate crimes. Criminal measures that have been underutilized include unlawful assembly, the wearing of a disguise while participating in an unlawful assembly, and interference with the lawful use and enjoyment of property (a form of mischief).
We are pleased to report that we are now seeing greater utilization of these and other existing criminal law measures by Toronto Police Service. One recent example involves the following event in Toronto:
On Thursday April 24, 2025, police attended a demonstration in front of the office of a Member of Parliament in the Keele and Lawrence area of Toronto. It is alleged that protestors forced their way into the office, while masked, occupying it and causing staff to fear for their safety. On July 9, 2025, Nadeem Talaat, 26, of Toronto was arrested and on July 11, 2025, Adam Kheireddine, 21, of Toronto, Issam Deeb, 41, of Toronto, and Mohammed Alshalalfeh, 28, of Toronto, were arrested and each was charged with Forcible Entry, Mischief (Interfering with the Lawful Use and Enjoyment of Property), Unlawful Assembly and Unlawful Assembly While Masked.
A fifth defendant, Ahlam Mohammed, 32 of Toronto was subsequently arrested by police on July 19, while attending a demonstration referred to below. She faces similar charges to the others and is scheduled to appear in court on the date set for all defendants. This is not expected to be a trial date, but merely a preliminary appearance as the charges move forward.
In a second such event, on Saturday, July 19, Toronto police attended a demonstration in the Spadina Avenue and Front Street area of Toronto. Police issued a warning for the demonstrators to clear the obstructed intersections and keep the demonstration moving or they would be arrested. See the Chief Superintendent’s warning to the protestors here.
The protestors refused to follow the police direction and instead occupied an intersection resulting in an unlawful assembly. Police again directed the group to disperse and move to the sidewalk. Some of the participants allegedly became aggressive and assaulted officers while resisting police efforts to restore order. The following 10 persons were arrested and charged as follows:
Ghassan Abulawi, 30, of Toronto, was charged with Obstruct Peace Officer and Fail to Comply with Undertaking. Fail to Comply with Undertaking relates to an allegation of non-compliance with a previous release. He was held in custody for a bail hearing. No information was available as to whether he was subsequently released on bail.
Deirdre Cahill, 43, of Oakville, was charged with Mischief (interfering with Lawful Use and Enjoyment of Property).
Anna Ellergodt, 28, of Toronto, was charged with Obstruct Peace Officer and Assault Peace Officer.
Yusif Alizada, 32, of Toronto, was charged with Obstruct Peace Officer, Possession of a Prohibited Weapon and Carry Concealed Weapon.
Nour Abu-Ali, 28, of Mississauga, was charged with Obstruct Peace Officer.
Thomas Butko, 38, of Georgina, was charged with two counts of Assault Peace Officer
Salim Elewa, 28, of Burlington, was charged with Assault Peace Officer, Cause Disturbance and Mischief (Interfering with the Lawful Use and Enjoyment of Property).
Adham Diabas, 26, of Brampton, was charged with Obstruct Peace Officer.
All are scheduled to next appear in court on September 8, 2025.
Also charged:
Leslie Solomonian, 47, of Toronto, was charged with: Obstruct Peace Officer
Jamiel Nasser, 23, of Windsor, was charged with: Obstruct Peace Officer, and Assault Peace Officer.
They are scheduled to next appear in court on September 12, 2025.
We do not comment on the merits of individual cases pending trial. However, we commend the Toronto Police Service for utilizing the wider array of criminal law tools available to them to address alleged lawlessness on our streets.
In related news, on July 12, 2025, Domenic Buchanan, 22, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with Hate-Motivated Mischief to Property (a more serious form of mischief that specifically criminalizes hate-motivated activities targeting a community’s infrastructure) and Mischief (Interfering with the Lawful Use and Enjoyment of Property). These charges related to a June 6, 2025 allegation that the defendant urinated on the steps of the Beach Hebrew Institute while yelling antisemitic slurs. He is next scheduled to appear in court on August 19, 2025.
On July 10, 2025, Roxanne Ingram, 52, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with Assault and Breach of Probation (a charge relating to a prior finding of guilt). It is alleged that she approached the victim, who was wearing a hijab and assaulted her while making Islamophobic slurs. She was taken into custody for a bail hearing, which was adjourned to July 23, 2025.
New Charges in Winnipeg
We are closely following two cases out of Winnipeg. On March 17, 2025, Nevin Thunder Young, 19 of Winnipeg was charged with Facilitating Terrorist Activity, Participation in Activity of a Terrorist Group, and Commission of an Offence for a Terrorist Group (two counts), all offences contrary to anti-terrorism provisions of the Criminal Code. Young was previously arrested by the Winnipeg Police Service and charged with 26 counts of mischief in relation to antisemitic graffiti in the Charleswood neighbourhood of Winnipeg.
Further investigation by the RCMP led to the terrorism charges. It is alleged that Young has ties, through online radicalization, to the violent extremist group, MKY (initials derived from the Russian for “Manic Murder Cult”). U.S. officials describe the group as an international violent extremist group that follows neo-Nazi accelerationist views² and encourages violence against members of the Jewish community, racial minorities, and other “undesirables”.
Last year, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted Georgian national Michai Chkhikvishvii, the alleged leader of MKY, with recruiting others to commit violent acts, including planning and soliciting a mass casualty attack in New York City. Meanwhile, in relation to the Winnipeg charges, Nevin Thunder Young remains in custody.
It is important to observe that Young is 19 years old. Law enforcement and national security organizations continue to see the rapid radicalization of young people through social media, reinforcing the importance of strategies (which we have discussed with law enforcement) to address such radicalization through early intervention.
The second case relates to the April 29, 2025 arrest of Donovan MacKenzie Ballingall, 23, of Winnipeg by the RCMP’s Northwest Region Federal Policing National Security Unit for four counts of wilful promotion of hatred. He allegedly targeted the Jewish, Muslim, 2SLGBTQ+ communities, as well as other visible minorities by posting hateful rhetoric using multiple online profiles primarily on the social media platform, X. At this time, Ballingall remains in custody.
Sentencing Proceedings
On July 15, 2025, a sentencing hearing was held in the matter of R. v. Waisuddin Akbari. Akbari was convicted in the Ontario Court of Justice on November 1, 2024 of the offences of threatening damage and death. The threatening charges related to Akbari’s March 4, 2024 statements to a BMW salesperson that he planned to plant bombs at synagogues across Toronto in an effort to kill as many Jews as possible. At the sentencing hearing, five community organizations, including two of our members, provided Community Impact Statements for the Court’s consideration¹.
Under the Criminal Code, sentencing courts must consider any statement made by an individual on a community’s behalf that describes the harm or loss suffered by the community as a result of the commission of the offence and its impact on the community.
However, such statements cannot refer to unproven allegations, contain commentary on the offence or offender irrelevant to community harm and generally, cannot express an opinion or recommendation as to the appropriate sentence to be imposed. It is the responsibility of the parties, including the prosecution, to make recommendations as to sentence.
In this case, the prosecution requested a sentence of four to six months in jail, followed by three years of probation. Akbari requested a conditional discharge (a disposition that would avoid a formal criminal conviction) also followed by probation. The presiding judge reserved judgment until July 28. We will report and comment on the sentence imposed thereafter.
We will continue to follow and report on all of these cases.
Hate Crime Statistics Update
On July 22, 2025, Statistics Canada released new national data on police-reported hate crimes. In 2024, there were 4,882 police-reported hate crimes across Canada — 1,342 of which were motivated by religious hatred. Of those, 920 targeted the Jewish community, representing the largest number of reported incidents against any identifiable group. While this marks a slight decrease from 959 incidents in 2023, hate crimes targeting Jews continue to account for a disproportionate share of all hate crimes in Canada at 71%. We will be analyzing these figures further in the weeks ahead.
Endnotes
1. B’nai Brith, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, the Toronto Board of Rabbis, the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation and the Centre for Israel Jewish Affairs
2. Accelerationism is a while supremacist ideology that promotes violence as a means to accelerate the purportedly inevitable collapse of society, leading to a white ethno-state.
About the Author
Rochelle Direnfeld is ALCCA's Senior Criminal Counsel. She was called to the Ontario bar in 1990 and has served in the Ontario Public Service for over 32 years as an assistant crown attorney, deputy crown attorney, crown counsel, and finally as a deputy director for Toronto Crown Attorneys in the Criminal Law Division of the Ministry of the Attorney General. Rochelle retired from public service at the end of 2023. During her career, Rochelle prosecuted a wide variety of Criminal Code cases in the Ontario Court of Justice, Superior Court of Justice, and the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Rochelle focused a large part of her career on youth criminal justice, developing policy as well as training and lecturing crowns, the defence bar, the judiciary, and the police. Since 2018, Rochelle has been committed to battling hate-motivated offences and has sat on the Attorney General’s Hate Crime Working Group, providing legal advice to crown counsel and police on hate crimes. In the aftermath of October 7, Rochelle returned to work with the Hate Crime Working Group at Crown Law Office - Criminal until November 2024. Rochelle also serves as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of BOOST Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, a wrap-around agency serving children and youth who have been victims of abuse, as well as their families.