A man who killed six people, including a mother and four children, in the Canadian capital Ottawa has been sentenced to life in prison.

Febrio De-Zoysa, a 20-year-old student, was living with the family in March 2024 when he fatally stabbed Darshani Ekanayake, 35, and her four children: Inuka, seven; Ashwini, four; Ranaya, three; and two-month old baby Kelly.

A family friend, 40-year-old Gamini Amarakoon, was also killed, while the father Dhanushka Wickramasinghe was wounded.

Delivering the verdict on Thursday, Justice Kevin Phillips condemned De-Zoysa’s “stupefying, monstrous” actions. “You are the stuff of nightmares… You have caused so much loss and grief,” he said.

De-Zoysa cannot seek parole for 25 years.

The Sri Lankan student was living in the basement of the Wickramasinghe family’s rented townhouse at the time of the mass stabbing, which Ottawa’s mayor later called “one of the most shocking incidents of violence in our city’s history”.

In court on Thursday, De-Zoysa repeated what he had said during earlier investigations: that the family had been “good and kind” to him, but that he was “unwell” at the time.

Defence lawyer Ewan Lyttle acknowledged that De-Zoysa committed “unthinkable” crimes, while noting that he was wrestling with mental illness when the incident occurred.

De-Zoysa sat still and showed no emotion for most of the hearing, Canadian media reported.

When Justice Phillips asked if he had anything more to say, he apologised. “I will spend the rest of my life acknowledging the truth of what I did,” he said.

The victims, apart from the baby who was born in Canada, were Sri Lankans who had arrived in Ottawa over the previous few years.

De-Zoysa told investigators that he committed the murder on 6 March 2024 because he had run out of money but did not want to return to Sri Lanka when his student visa expired.

His weapon was a 38cm hunting knife which he bought more than a month before and had wanted to use to take his own life, the court said.

De-Zoysa’s first victim was Amarakoon, whom he killed within “a small number of minutes” after inviting Amarakoon to his room in the basement to watch a movie.

Ekanayake heard Amarakoon’s screams and called her husband, who was still out. Wickramasinghe then phoned De-Zoysa, who lied that the screams were from a movie they were watching, Canadian broadcaster CBC reported.

De-Zoysa then headed upstairs and stabbed Ekanayake and the four kids to death.

When Wickramasinghe returned home hours later, De-Zoysa started attacking him but was eventually subdued.

Neighbours called the police when they heard Wickramasinghe screaming that someone had murdered his family.

Police arrived to find De-Zoysa sitting on the front steps of the house. “I was going to be deported. I had no choice. I killed them all,” he reportedly told the arresting officer.

Amarakoon’s widow Dishani Asangika Fernando appeared in Thursday’s hearing via video conference from Sri Lanka, saying her late husband had “given everything to us – his time, his energy, his dreams”.

Their three-year-old daughter “asks for him all the time”, the court heard, while their teenage daughter Asheri Hiyansa Amarakoon told the court “nothing feels normal anymore”.

 Wickramasinghe, who was the last to speak, said the tragedy “destroyed my whole world” and is something he can never recover from.

He had brought his family to Canada in search of a better life, he said, according to a CBC report.

“Please do not destroy the peace and quiet of this land. Let us protect and respect it.”

[BBC]