Gabriel Sohier-Chaput, a Montrealer behind hundreds of articles published on an American neo-Nazi site, was back in court on Friday afternoon. Lawyers at the trial of the 35-year-old accused of fomenting hatred against Jews have debated the link between Nazism and the Holocaust.
According to the defence, the crown — represented by Me Patrick Lafrenière — did not provide enough evidence to convict the 35-year-old of fomenting hatred toward Jews.
Gabriel Sohier-Chaput published his texts under the pseudonym Zeiger on The Daily Stormer website. The site is among the most popular far-right American blogs across the planet.
The defense attorney, M.e Hélène Poussard, argued that the fact that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis was not precise enough to be of judicial knowledge.
She reiterated in her closing argument that this was not to deny the Holocaust. “We are not talking about personal knowledge. We are talking about judicial knowledge. »
The writings of her client are not sufficient in themselves to incite hatred against a specific group, she pleaded to judge Manlio Del Negro.
The articles are “contemptuous, vexatious, but this article is never going to make a reasonable person hate Jews. »
” We can be [membre du parti] Nazi and not having agreed with the extermination of the Jews,” she added, referring to several definitions of the word Nazi taken from different dictionaries.
Me Poussard had already pleaded last March that his client simply wanted to “make people laugh” by publishing an article on The Daily Stormer site where one could read in particular that it was absolutely necessary to reconnect with the “ancestral tradition” of insulting Jews in the street.
In this article, since deleted, one could also see the drawing of a Nazi soldier about to activate the lever of a gas chamber.
The maximum penalty for fomenting hatred against a group is two years in prison. Judge Del Negro is due to render his decision on January 23.