By Lydia Kent & Maheeshan Sivanesan
Ottawa’s Palestinian community and supporters were disappointed after the final hearing, on July 22, of a Swiss man who assaulted a 21 year-old woman outside a defence conference in 2024 — which resulted in an absolute discharge.
The judge ruled the attack was not “motivated by prejudice or hate” against the evidence put forward by the Crown attorney, including the video evidence where Henschel states he is “a fucking racist.”
Leading up to the Discharge
David Mikha’El Henschel attended CANSEC, which is Canada’s leading defence and security event, as a representative of Swiss munitions company Rheinmetall Waffe Munition Schweiz AG in May 2024.
The discharge on Wednesday comes after the July 13 hearing was rescheduled when the offender did not appear in person that day, and instead attended virtually from Switzerland. This comes after he pleaded guilty last year to the charges of the assault.
“I made the presumption that Henschel would be present, to be sentenced, and like everyone else, I was shocked that he didn’t come,” Brent Patterson, Shut Down CANSEC campaign organizer and the executive director of Peace Brigades International-Canada, said outside the courthouse.
“It seemed both of the lawyers, also, did not have any prior warning, and so it did seem disrespectful of the Court, disrespectful of the process, disrespectful of the family and everyone who had gathered to bring this to some conclusion.”
Henschel was present at the June 5 hearing where he blamed his low-blood sugar and PTSD for punching the victim in the face.
Dr. Greg Passey, the psychiatrist that diagnosed him, argued that “low-blood sugar had caused Henschel to become ‘irritable’, while his prior military experience had left him with PTSD, specifically a fear of crowds,” as reported by the CBC.
The victim read her impact statement at the hearing.
“The hit was so strong that I collapsed to the ground and lost consciousness,” she said. “That moment was not just violent, it was deliberate and cruel. It was a targeted attack meant to hurt and silence me.”
Crown attorney Moiz Karimjee believed that Dr. Passey’s findings were solely based on what was reported by Henschel, and argued they were rooted in “victim-blaming and anti-Palestinian bias”. It is also worth noting that Passey served for 22 years in the Canadian Forces until September 2000.
“It was difficult and frustrating witnessing the excuses that [the psychiatrist] would present to the judge,” said Nada Shubair, a community member who attended the June 5 hearing for support.
“At one point, he had pointed at the audience in the room saying that their presence is threatening his and Henschel’s safety, as they felt uncomfortable, which is just clear racism.”
When asked if this case has affected the way she views safety at protests, Nada added, “I realize that the justice system and law enforcement will be biased towards racialized individuals no matter what, which is terrifying.”
The hearing was streamed on Zoom, but many observers that tried to attend online said they were not admitted.
“I was waiting for the zoom meeting for the entire court hearing until it ended, which was I think around 6 PM,” said Reida Khadour, another community member. “They had not accepted me nor did anyone else that was also attending online.”
The assault at CANSEC 2024
In the video of the assault itself, the victim approaches Henschel but is not seen to be in physical contact with him at any point before Henschel intentionally lashes out and strikes her in the head with a closed fist.
The attack caused her to fall to the ground, hit her head on the pavement, and lose consciousness, according to the statement published by Ottawa Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) two days after the incident, on May 31.
“If he could do that to me, in public, surrounded by cameras, what might he do to others when no one is watching?”
That was a question asked by the victim at the June 5 hearing as she read her victim impact statement. The victim’s family requested The Leveller not release her identity.
Ottawa Police then proceeded to crowd the victim as she lay on the ground and pushed community members aside while “a single officer delicately placed the aggressor in handcuffs,” the PYM statement continued.
In addition to Henschel, many protesters were also arrested for exercising their right to protest, including Thomas Deadman, who was a University of Ottawa encampment organizer at the time of his arrest.
“I was arrested because myself and others stood arm in arm, trying to block the road to this arms conference because we know it’s enabling genocide and horrible atrocities in Palestine and around the world, and that this is not an event that should exist,” Deadman told The Leveller.
“I was arrested along with four or five other people, and put into a cell, and shortly after that, another man was brought into his cell, who I later found out was David Henschel.”
Deadman explained how he was sleeping in a cell on a concrete bench with no blankets when he asked officers for a blanket, while Henschel, who was directly next to his cell, got what he “can only assume was a mattress” that was dragged down the hall.
He added, “they actually bumped his trial up ahead of mine, meaning I was held for 26 hours longer than supposed to be held without any charges … so he can make his flight out of the country that day.”
“Between you and me […] things have gotten too woke,” said an arresting officer to Henschel, as reported by Ottawa PYM. “They accuse us of not doing our jobs if we don’t arrest you too.”
Karimjee showed a video at that hearing, to dispute Dr. Passey’s claims, where Henschel walks by a male protester outside the event on May 29 and says “Shalom”. The protester responds with “Free, free, free Palestine!” before he repeatedly tells Henschel to punch him. Henschel, seen on video in full control of his demeanor and actions, backs away and refuses to engage further.
He later responded to protesters that called him racist with “I’m a fucking racist and proud of it,” again visibly coherent and in full control of his behaviour and speech. Justice Norman Boxall ruled that he “cannot find that this is motivated by prejudice or hate,” despite Henschel expressing this clearly before the assault.
“I reject the Crown allegation that he is racist, or the offence was in any way racially motivated,” Boxall continued.
“The consequences of having your name and appearance, as well as your conduct, uploaded to the internet for the entire world to see, the shame of seeking reference letters from friends involved, [and] the damage to a reputation that you spent a lifetime attaining […] contributed to, if not caused your lost employment.”
Boxall deemed Henschel following the due process of “having to appear in a public court and return to Canada twice [and] having to retain a lawyer [made him] experience the uncertainty and anxiety of [serving] a significant jail term in a foreign country,” and all this constituted a punishment befitting of the crime.
Henschel’s attorney James Foord later shared that “[Henschel] is no longer employed in the arms industry [but he] is involved with some other projects, one of which includes a project to remove land mines in certain countries where they are problematic and pose a very grave risk to the people who live there, so he is involved in some of those projects, similar to some of the projects Princess Diana was involved in before she passed away.”
The discharge given on July 22
The result on Wednesday was met with anger and frustration in the courtroom.
“Your behaviour on the day in question was criminal. It caused harm,” Judge Boxall told Henschel at the hearing. “However, having considered everything, in my view, the appropriate disposition is an absolute discharge.”
He continued, announcing that Henschel has to pay a $5,000 victim surcharge for his failure to appear at the previously scheduled sentencing hearing on July 13.
As the discharge was announced by the judge, Henschel stood up and saluted. Supporters of the victim shouted “shame” and “racist, racist, racist” after the decision.
“All our beliefs that Canadians are equal were shattered today,” said Bassam Hashem, the father of the victim, outside the courthouse. “We were told explicitly by a judge that, no, you are not equal. When we talk about racism, we don’t mean you … You are a second class citizen that can be assaulted. This is how I feel.”
He added that the victim’s family only found out through a CBC article that there are “agreed facts” that were submitted to the judge, but the family was not consulted.
It was only after he asked the Crown that he got the opportunity to read these “agreed facts”.
“When he shared these facts with me, I was reading that [my daughter] was moving briskly towards the racist, who admitted proudly that he was racist and proud of it, [and how] she told him, ‘If you enter this exhibition, then you are supporting a genocide,’” he said. “And this has never happened. The video clearly shows [her] standing on the pavement, and this guy approaching her, she didn’t move towards him. And I’m really shocked how the Crown can submit lies to a judge without talking to the victim.”
“What happened today is encouraging others to assault young girls. You’re just saying, you cannot stop them, and as long as you didn’t eat your breakfast, it should be okay,” he concluded.
At the June 5 hearing, Dr. Passey stated that skipping breakfast and only having tea without sugar that day were some of the leading factors in his assault of the young Muslim woman.
The Leveller also spoke with Deana Sherif outside court, who was arrested 12 days after a separate protest in April 2024.
“[The Crown] that was on my case, is the same crown that’s on this case,” Sherif said, referring to Karimjee. “He is a useful idiot.”
“[A man] was trying to fight with our protesters, and I sounded an electronic whistle to bring attention to it and to deter. It was an act of self defence, as well as a call for help,” she said, explaining the incident. “The guy ripped the whistle out of my hand … I followed him to get my whistle back, and out of that, I was charged with assault with a weapon using sound, because they suggested that the sound of the whistle was an assault.”
Sherif claimed to have spent 340 days in jail, and how she was “the first person in history on this planet to have been charged, let alone convicted, of assault using sound.” She further explained how they even had evidence in court, saying they had “a 55 year plus hearing expert who said, specifically, that there is no way that I used that [Fox 40] whistle in a way that could harm a person.”
While Henschel was given an absolute discharge, Deadman said he was given “four different charges, 50 hours of community service, and a year of not going back to the EY Centre.”
“Clearly, there’s this relation between these people who work for the state, work for the criminal legal system, work for weapons companies, there’s some level, I think, they seem to see themselves as all part of the same team, whether consciously or unconsciously,” Deadman concluded.
Why protests against CANSEC take place
CANSEC is organized by the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) and hosts hundreds of exhibitors annually, including the company Henschel worked for. It has been held at the EY Centre (renamed to Cohere Centre earlier this year) in recent years.
CANSEC has been held annually in Ottawa since 1998 and this year is the busiest it has been in its history.
Organizers claim to have had over 20,000 registered attendees on May 27 and 28, in addition to “300 exhibitors, more than 60 international delegations and 45 MPs, senators and cabinet ministers from 12 government departments,” as reported in a brief by the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF).
Several companies showcasing their products at the exhibition are directly implicated in international war crimes, such as Israel’s genocide in Palestine. The Leveller recently documented some of these companies and interviewed community members that reject the global arms trade at CANSEC.
The IJF brief also mentioned their analysis and how 33 of the 42 sponsors this year are registered to lobby the federal government, claiming “they gained specific perks to help them pitch their products or services to government officials, without having to publicly disclose those contacts with lawmakers.”
German company Rheinmetall, which is the parent company of Rheinmetall Waffe Munition Schweiz AG which Henschel was a representative of in 2024, was one such sponsor this year. They registered to “promote its products to representatives of the Government of Canada, Department of National Defence, Canadian Armed Forces, ISED, PSPC, and Defence Investment Agency.”
Rheinmetall AG is “Germany’s largest weapons manufacturer, which is providing Israel with 10,000 rounds of 120mm precision tank ammunition,” as published on the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) database of companies profiting from the genocide in Gaza.
In a June 2024 press release, United Nations experts reported that “In line with recent calls from the Human Rights Council and the independent UN experts to States to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel, arms manufacturers supplying Israel – including BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh, Rheinmetall AG, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp – should also end transfers, even if they are executed under existing export licenses.”
Not only does CADSI and these States and companies ignore UN demands, but Canadian universities are actively involved through their CADSI membership and investments in complicit companies. Carleton University is an example, as they are a CADSI member and have over 30 million dollars invested in weapons manufacturers and companies committing crimes globally, including those that regularly attend CANSEC. The Leveller first documented these investments in June 2025.
In recent years, there have been a bigger turnout at protests against CANSEC due to Israel’s escalation in the genocide of Palestinians.
Since October 2023, over 73,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, and over 1,100 including at least 267 children since the US-brokered “ceasefire” in October 2025.
“Protesting CANSEC means the refusal to normalize the settler colonial Zionist project and the weapons deals, defence coordination, and partnerships that take place at weapons fairs globally,” wrote the Shut Down CANSEC coalition in a post that was published on May 25 to promote the protest this year. “CANSEC is an extension of a capitalist system that reproduces itself on death and destruction backed by private security and publicly funded police forces only designed to protect the world’s most lethal and well funded murderers.”
Although no arrests were made at the protest this year, there was a large presence of Ottawa Police and Ontario Provincial Police in riot gear, as highlighted in a recently published article by The Leveller. Last year, 13 arrests were reported and in 2024 there were 9 arrests.
CADSI has announced the dates for CANSEC 2027, which have been scheduled for June 2 and 3.
Editor’s Note: The writers will be donating their Leveller honorarium to the Ottawa Community Defence Fund, and encourage readers to donate as well. Donations can be sent by e-transfer to: info@labourforpalestine.com with “Community Legal Defense Fund” in the note of the transfer.
