Ontario prosecutors withdrew a mischief charge against physician and activist Tarek Loubani in November 2024, about a year after police arrested him over ketchup sprayed on Liberal MP Peter Fragiskatos’s London constituency office. Court staff confirmed the withdrawal. Loubani’s lawyers said the Crown had concluded that continuing the prosecution was not in the public interest.
The incident and police account
The protest occurred in downtown London in 2023. Police said Loubani and three other people went to the office on Hyman Street, where he sprayed ketchup on the door and front of the building. They alleged that he handed additional bottles to others and encouraged them to mark the property as well.
The other three people entered a diversion programme, an alternative process sometimes used for less serious allegations. Loubani was charged with mischief, but a charge is an accusation rather than a finding of guilt.
What withdrawal means
A Crown withdrawal ends that prosecution without a trial verdict. It is not a conviction and should not be described as one. It also is not necessarily a judicial declaration that every alleged act was lawful. Prosecutors assess whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and whether prosecution serves the public interest.
Loubani’s lawyers, Arash Ghiassi and Riaz Sayani, characterized the act as constitutionally protected political protest and criticized what they called a heavy-handed response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations. That was the defence position. The Crown’s detailed analysis was not set out in the short public account.
The MP’s response
Fragiskatos said police decide whether to lay a charge and the Crown decides whether to proceed, making further comment on the process inappropriate. He also said his office and staff had faced vandalism, threats and hostility over several years and called that conduct unacceptable.
Those points can coexist: a particular charge can be withdrawn while constituency employees retain a legitimate interest in safety and access to their workplace. Reporting should not treat staff as interchangeable with the elected official whose policies protesters oppose.
Political expression and property
Canada protects peaceful expression and assembly, including sharp criticism of officials. Those protections are not unlimited permission to damage property, threaten people or obstruct essential access. The precise legal boundary depends on the conduct, evidence and applicable law, not simply on whether an event is called a protest.
Ketchup may be temporary and symbolic, but police and prosecutors still must apply proportionality. Arrest, prosecution, diversion and no charge carry different burdens. Public-interest screening allows the justice system to consider seriousness, harm, alternatives and the value of protected expression.
A precise account of the outcome
The safe wording is that the mischief charge was withdrawn and Loubani was not convicted in this case. It would be inaccurate to say that a court found him guilty, and equally inaccurate to invent a court ruling declaring all similar actions protected.
The episode became part of a broader argument about how Canadian authorities handle protest connected to the Israel–Gaza war. That policy debate should use aggregate charging and outcome data. This individual case establishes a narrower fact: prosecutors chose not to continue, while the competing concerns about political expression, property and staff safety remained matters for public discussion.
