A “hate influencer” who called for attacking Jews will be able to appeal his sentence five times higher than that demanded by the prosecution at home, since the highest court in Quebec also released him under bail.
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This was announced by the Court of Appeal on Friday morning.
Gabriel Sohier-Chaput, a 36-year-old Montrealer, was sentenced to 15 months in prison at the end of September for fomenting hatred against Jews in an Internet publication.
However, the prosecution and the defense had jointly recommended a three-month prison sentence.
“The act of mocking and tormenting Holocaust victims and their families must be considered a highly reprehensible act,” Judge Manlio Del Negro said in rejecting the common suggestion.
“We must ensure that no social justice warrior or Jew can remain safe from being shocked. Non-stop Nazism, everywhere, until all the streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies,” Sohier-Chaput wrote on the Daily Stormer site, very popular with a branch of the American extreme right.
Sohier-Chaput, who used the pseudonym Zeiger on the Web, filed a request for permission to appeal last week, to which the public prosecutor agreed.
“The sentence imposed is excessive having regard to the seriousness […] of the crime charged,” the neo-Nazi said in his appeal request.
Sohier-Chaput will also regain his freedom while awaiting further proceedings in the Court of Appeal. Interestingly, the Crown did not oppose his release.
It will be interesting to hear the Crown’s arguments before Quebec’s highest court, since the judge imposed a more severe sentence than that requested by the public prosecutor.
With Michael Nguyen