TORONTO — An Ontario Superior Court judge found Kristoffer Nippak, 33, guilty Wednesday of knowingly participating in the activities of Atomwaffen Division, a designated terrorist group.Justice Maureen D. Forestell ruled the Crown had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Nippak knew the group was a terrorist organization when he took part in filming a recruitment video. The video — described in the decision as “central” to the finding — shows armed men wearing skull masks and Atomwaffen patches marching through a forest, firing guns, clearing a building and burning the flags of the United States, Israel and the European Union.Nippak was arrested in December 2023 alongside Matthew Althorpe of Niagara Region after an 18-month RCMP investigation that stretched across central Quebec, eastern and northern Ontario and the Niagara Region. Althorpe pleaded guilty to three terrorism charges and was sentenced in March to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors said his online manifestos inspired at least six attacks that left people killed and wounded..Atomwaffen Division, founded in the United States in 2015, was listed as a terrorist entity in Canada in 2021. Court heard that after the listing some former members moved into Active Club Canada, a white-only martial-arts group that is not on the federal terror list. Nippak’s defence argued he was a “white nationalist who obeys the laws” and that the Crown had not proven he was the masked figure in the video.The conviction lands as Ontario deals with other high-profile public-safety cases and as Queen’s Park faces questions about how quickly extremist networks are identified and disrupted. Sentencing for Nippak has not yet been scheduled.
