Toronto Van Attack Killer Drops His Appeal: Alek Minassian's 26 Convictions Are Now Final

Photo: oaktree_brian_1976 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) — File photo: Yonge Street looking south, cordoned off by police on April 23, 2018, the afternoon of the attack. This is not a photo of this week's court news.

It ended the way it began for the families — with a short statement from a court, and no drama at all. Ontario's top court has confirmed that Alek Minassian, the man who drove a rented van down a crowded Toronto sidewalk in April 2018 and killed 10 people, has abandoned his appeal. The convictions stand. There will be no new trial, no fresh hearing, no more waiting for a date that kept moving.

The Canadian Press reported on November 6 that the Court of Appeal for Ontario says Minassian is no longer challenging his convictions — 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. He had filed the appeal in July 2022, about a month after he was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. The appeal then sat in the system for more than four years; as recently as February 2026, the court was still dealing with a production motion in the case. CP24 confirmed the same day that he is no longer seeking to overturn any of the convictions. Now it is over.

A trial that turned on one question

Minassian never denied what he did. On April 23, 2018, he drove a rented van along the sidewalk on Yonge Street in North York, hitting pedestrian after pedestrian over a stretch of about a kilometre. Eight women and two men were killed that day. Sixteen more people were hurt, some of them badly. One of the injured, Amaresh Tesfamariam, died of her injuries in 2021 — an 11th life lost to that afternoon. Police arrested him a short distance away, less than 30 minutes after the first 911 call, after a tense standoff that was caught on video and shared around the world.

What the trial was really about was whether he should be held criminally responsible. His lawyers argued that his autism meant he had never developed empathy and could not make rational decisions. Justice Anne Molloy rejected that argument. She found he knew right from wrong, understood what he was doing, and chose to do it anyway. In March 2021 she convicted him on all 26 counts. When she wrote her reasons, she refused to use his name at all — she called him "John Doe" instead, saying she would not hand him the notoriety he had been chasing. CBC News has said it will keep using his name in some instances, for clarity.

The people he killed

The ten people killed on April 23, 2018, were Ji Hun Kim, 22; So He Chung, 22; Anne Marie D'Amico, 30; Andrea Bradden, 33; Chul Min "Eddie" Kang, 45; Renuka Amarasingha, 45; Dorothy Sewell, 80; Geraldine Brady, 83; Munir Najjar, 85; and Mary Elizabeth "Betty" Forsyth, 94. They were students and office workers, parents and grandparents, out on an ordinary spring afternoon. That is the part of this story that has never changed, and it is the part worth holding on to.

What the dropped appeal actually means

Legally, the effect is simple: the convictions are final. Minassian stays in prison on a life sentence, with no parole for 25 years, and the 20-year sentence for the attempted-murder counts runs at the same time. There is nothing left for a court to decide about his guilt.

For the families, the practical difference is quieter but real. An appeal would have meant more court dates, more headlines, more of the same details dragged back into public view. Instead, the file closes. That does not undo anything, and nobody involved would pretend it does. But it does mean the legal story of April 23, 2018, is finished — and the only story left is the one about the people who were lost, and the city that stopped that day and then, slowly, carried on.

Sources

• The Canadian Press (via Europe Says) — Man convicted in deadly 2018 Toronto van attack, drops appeal (Nov. 6, 2026)
• CP24 — Toronto man convicted of 2018 van attack no longer seeking appeal (Nov. 6, 2026)
• Court of Appeal for Ontario — R. v. Minassian, 2026 ONCA 150 (Feb. 26, 2026)