International student charged in Canada gender studies stabbings

A former international student at Waterloo University in Canada was charged on Thursday with a triple-stabbing during a gender studies class on campus that police said was motivated by hate.

Waterloo police Chief Mark Crowell told a media briefing it was a "planned and targeted attack motivated by hate and related to gender expression and gender identity."

The accused, he said, walked into a class on Wednesday carrying two large knives and briefly spoke to the 38-year-old professor before stabbing her.

Several students intervened while others fled.

Two students -- a 20-year-old female and a 19-year-old male -- were stabbed in the melee and taken with their teacher to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The suspect, who tried to also stab a third student, was arrested at the scene amid a massive police response. He attempted to blend in as a victim leaving the room but witnesses identified him to police, said Crowell.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the stabbings "absolutely despicable."

"I strongly condemn this vile act," he said in a Twitter message. "It is another reminder that we can never let misogynistic, anti-2SLGBTQI+ rhetoric escalate -- because these words have real-life consequences."

Geovanny Villalba-Aleman, 24, originally from Ecuador, faces several counts of aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and mischief.

He was not a member of the class that was targeted, but had recently studied at the university, according to police.

Over the past year there have been several instances of protestors targeting LGBTQ+ events in Canada, including clashes with participants at drag story readings to children.

In 2018 a man in a rented van mowed down pedestrians -- targeting mostly women -- in Toronto, killing 10 and injuring 16 in the city's deadliest ever attack.

Another gender-related attack at a Canadian university saw a man who claimed to be "fighting feminism" in 1989 fatally shoot 14 female students and employees at Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering school, in Montreal.