Former member of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), Jacques Cossette-Trudel, died of an illness. The 76-year-old man was known for his participation in the kidnapping of a British diplomat, at the dawn of the October crisis.
This was reported by various media during the day on Wednesday. With his spouse Louise Lanctôt, Mr. Cossette-Trudel had been convicted in the early 1980s for having kidnapped and kidnapped James Richard Cross, a British diplomat kidnapped by the FLQ almost at the same time as Pierre Laporte, the Deputy Premier of Quebec. who died shortly after.
Born in February 1947 in the city of Shawinigan, the deceased had settled in the Ville Mont-Royal sector when he was only 12 years old. During his studies, he had been very involved as an activist, notably at the Cégep de Maisonneuve and the Syndicat of secondary school students.
It was during the fall of 1969 that he joined the FLQ, before participating in the kidnapping of James Richard Cross in October 1970. He was then exiled from Quebec for many years, notably in Cuba and France for a total of eight years, before returning to Quebec to be judged there.
When he returned to the province in 1978, the police authorities arrested Mr. Cossette-Trudel. The latter then pleaded guilty to charges of forcible confinement, conspiracy and kidnapping, in particular. He was eventually sentenced to two years in prison, less a day, with tight release conditions of an additional three years.
Once out of prison, the man had embarked on a new career, this time in the world of communications. He has mainly worked in the health sector, notably within CLSCs and the Health and Social Services Agency of Metropolitan Montreal.
Jacques Cossette-Trudel will also be remembered for directing and writing the documentary series “A quiet revolution, a popular history of Quebec”, broadcast on Télé-Québec. He was also selected for the Gémeaux awards for his work in the early 2000s.
More recently, in 2020, Jacques Cossette-Trudel returned to the kidnapping of James Richard Cross in an interview given to journalist Marc Laurendeau of Radio-Canada, as part of the podcast For having lived it. He then reported that ex-Felquiste Paul Rose had offered to kill James Cross, allegations which were later denied by ex-Felquiste Louise Verreault.
The former felquiste is survived today by his two children, Marie-Ange Cossette-Trudel and Alexis Cossette-Trudel, one of the leading figures of the anti-mask movement recognized for his conspiratorial positions, also a follower of the ideology movement. far-right QAnon.
In October 2020, when Quebec was in the midst of a health crisis, Marie-Ange Cossette-Trudel had also signed a testimony in the pages of The Press, stating in particular that “my family has been scrutinized from all sides for ages, but even more recently”. “A large family full of contradictions like many others, with the only difference that mine is part of the collective narrative framework, up to school textbooks”, she had written.