Alb Effe, 28, was stabbed to death near York University on September 13, 2016 by Alijan Arif Khan, 31, after the two argued about religion.
CIJnews reports that the victim died of his stabbing wound in Humber River Hospital, Toronto. CIJnews is an online news source serving the 75,000-strong Canadian-Israeli community.
Witnesses told CP24 – Canada's 24-hour news channel, based in Toronto - that the stabbing occurred following an argument over religion and ethnicity. One neighbor said he witnessed the fight: “Some guy has been trying to say that Muslims are bad. The other guy is trying to say you guys are bad… And last night for some reason, it just got out of hand… I heard them still out there at like 11 something and I heard one guy say, ‘Oh no, it’s because you’re Arabic,’ and the other guy was like, ‘No, it was not, it was your people…’”
Effe was a musician and architectural technology student who won three bronze medals in martial arts for Canada. It was not reported whether he was Jewish, but one neighbor said the argument heated up over the English versus Hebrew pronunciations of the name “Benjamin.”
Khan, believed to be a student at York University and who apparently knew Effe personally, is facing second-degree murder charges.
CIJnews added that though there have been accusations of an increase in Islamophobic violence in Toronto, it could not find any evidence to support this claim.