Teen was doing homework at family's Mississauga, Ont. restaurant when gunman opened fire: testimony

The 13-year-old sister of a young man killed in the attack on her family’s Mississauga restaurant in 2021 took the stand in a Brampton courthouse on Monday to describe the terrifying moments of coming under fire.

The 13-year-old sister of a young man killed in the attack on her family’s Mississauga restaurant in 2021 took the stand in a Brampton courthouse on Monday to describe the terrifying moments of coming under fire.

Sandra Akl, now 16, was composed as she described how she was doing homework in the back of the Akl family’s Chicken Land restaurant when a gunman burst in.

“Pretty much everyone but me was shot. Most of them were lying on the floor bleeding. My mom, although she was shot, she was still standing,” Akl said of the scene.

She said she took cover behind kitchen equipment and was not injured, but saw her family members and one employee hit. Her father was shot in the chest, her mother in her right arm, and one of her two brothers was shot in the head, she said.

“I was too busy paying attention to my mom screaming and trying to hide from the bullets I didn’t get a good look [at the attacker],” she later told investigators.

The Crown has alleged the gunman was not attacking at random, but part of a co-ordinated operation headquartered in a nearby warehouse business called Trialinc, that was sending money to the listed terrorist group the Islamic State.

The target, the Crown has said, was Naim Akl, who had recently got a job at Trialinc, and had discovered the group’s connections to terrorism and planned to turn them in.