The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) accuses a 51-year-old Lévisien, Gérald Nicolas, of having “prepared a terrorist activity aimed at overthrowing the Haitian government of Jovenel Moïse”, the former president assassinated in July 2021 by an armed commando.
The RCMP investigation, which took precedence in July 2021 over that initiated earlier by the Service de police de la Ville de Lévis, shows that the accused was planning the execution of “an armed revolution in Haiti to ultimately take power “.
Gérald Nicolas “would have taken concrete actions, in particular by traveling to Haiti”, to organize a group dedicated to perpetrating a coup d’etat. The investigation, the RCMP said in a statement, “is not related to the assassination” of the former president.
The information states that the accused left Montreal on April 12, 2021 “to commit an act in Haiti, namely to knowingly facilitate terrorist activity in this country”. Between April 2020 and June 2021, the document continues, Mr. Nicolas also allegedly “knowingly facilitated terrorist activity” in Quebec, Canada, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The accused is said to have provided goods, “including money, tents and a generator”.
“He would have started planning this in January 2020, specifies Sergeant Charles Poirier of the RCMP. He would have traveled to Haiti, but also to other Central American countries with the aim of recruiting, financing and acquiring weapons. His travels ended in failure, the RCMP points out, since the accused failed to obtain arsenal.
Victim of revenge, according to the accused
The gendarmerie indicates that it searched the home of Gérald Nicolas for the first time in November 2021. The authorities then arrested the individual, before releasing him, on the pretext that he presented no threat to internal security. “His activities were solely focused on the outside,” says Sergeant Poirier.
The accused was probably able to leave the country after this first arrest, since The duty contacted Gérald Nicolas while he was abroad. “I’ll be back tomorrow and I’ll deal with all of this. I’m not ashamed of what I did or what I said. »
He says he has two daughters aged 13 and 15 and has already had shares in a residence for the elderly in Beauce. Mr. Nicolas vehemently denies the accusations against him and denies having made threats against the regime of Jovenel Moïse. “I just created a Facebook page, he says, so that Haitians can take their destiny into their own hands. »
He blames his setbacks on a Moroccan woman he met on a dating site who never accepted their breakup. “We dated for eight months in 2020 or 2021,” he says.
In his opinion, the woman, out of a desire for revenge, painted him as a putschist to the police of Lévis. “One day, I was preparing humanitarian barrels. She told them I was putting something else in there. It is completely false! “describes the accused. He claims to be a victim of racism because he is, according to him, “rich and black”.
Mr. Nicolas claims “three postgraduate degrees in three different fields”, all obtained “in the best French universities”. He says his wealth comes from good real estate investments and calculates that he still has four properties in Lévis.
The accused’s main residence, perched on the cape overlooking the river in Lévis, has a taxable value of $750,000, according to the city’s assessment roll.
Guilty last August
Gérald Nicolas owns at least one other residence in Lévis, located in the Saint-Romuald sector and which serves as both accommodation and head office for a numbered company registered in his name. A neighbor of this last residence, who requests anonymity for fear of reprisals, indicates that the police visited this rental house a year ago.
“I have already seen police cars in front,” said the man. According to him, many people lived at this address, including women and children. “There were always big Mercedes-style tanks in the driveway,” he says, taking care to add that these neighbors had “never caused any trouble.”
The accused must appear on 1er December to the Quebec City courthouse to face charges of leaving Canada to facilitate terrorist activity, facilitating terrorist activity and providing property for terrorist purposes.
If convicted, the accused faces heavy penalties. The first count alone is punishable by 14 years in prison.
Gérald Nicolas is already facing justice in two other cases. Last August, he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and non-consensual publication of intimate images. In this case too, he attributes the accusations to the rantings of his former lover. “I sent the photo out of self-defense,” he defends himself. He must return to court on Friday, November 25 to know his sentence.