Gabriel Sohier-Chaput, a Montrealer who wrote about 1,000 articles published on an American neo-Nazi site, intentionally sought to foment hatred against Jews in a January 2017 publication, the Crown prosecutor pleaded.
Posted at 4:32 p.m.
Updated at 7:25 p.m.
“The defendant is an educated, intelligent, articulate and knowledgeable person,” Mr.e Patrick Lafrenière, Friday at the Montreal courthouse. “He couldn’t not know that if a racist, anti-Semite or someone who loves Nazi ideology read his text, it would encourage further hatred of Jews. »
Present by videoconference, the 35-year-old man, who published his texts under the pseudonym Zeiger, seemed annoyed. He shook his head, rolled his eyes and raised his eyebrows several times during the all day Crown argument.
Me Hélène Poussard, defense lawyer, had pleaded last March that her 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 Crown wanted to prove three things: that Gabriel Sohier-Chaput made his comments in the public sphere, and not in a private conversation, that the comments he made were “hateful” and not just “disturbing or hurtful”, and that they target an identifiable group. In this case, we are talking about the Jews.
“Non-stop Nazism everywhere”, “2017 will be the year of action”, “the streets will be filled with the tears of our enemies”, “us against them”. Several passages of the text have been analyzed and denounced for their “anti-Semitic” connotation, according to the Crown.
“It would be a mistake to take isolated sentences and take them out of context,” the prosecutor said. You definitely have to take the context into account. »
But the aggressive tone means that the words are likely to expose people to detestation and hatred. The site promotes anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic remarks.
Me Patrick Lafrenière, Crown Attorney
“Clearly, these articles were accessible to Mr. and Mrs. Everybody. The Daily Stormer is available on the web, no code, no software,” M added.e Lafreniere.
Defense skid
More than a dozen times during the day, the prosecutor recalled that the Jewish population had been “deported, persecuted, eliminated, exterminated” by the Nazis during the Second World War. This population was considered “inferior and responsible for the ills of Germany and Western society”, he argued.
He did not, however, call on a historian to testify to this, as he assumed that the events surrounding the Holocaust were of “judicial knowledge”.
“You are asking the Tribunal to make extrapolations. You’re accusing someone of a very serious crime, and you’re not bringing in evidence from a historian, from a sociologist. It would have been so easy”, reproached him the judge Manlio Del Negro, who would also have liked to hear an expert who could give him details on the political and ideological orientation of the site The Daily Stormer.
Asked by the judge to find out if she recognized these historical events, Ms.e Hélène Poussard caused unease in the courtroom.
“I do not agree that the ideology of the Nazis corresponded to anti-Semitism. Don’t we use the word nazism all over the place today? If a person calls himself a Nazi, does that mean that this person wants the extermination of the Jewish race? »
“We play with words,” she continued. According to the dictionary, Nazism is National Socialism. It was an ideology. It was not part of the original plan, to exterminate the Jews. And is it really six million victims? »
“Me Poussard, do you think it was the Nazis who brought Jews to concentration camps? asked the judge.
“I think it was Germans who called themselves Nazis. I think it’s because we wanted to save money. It was cheaper to gas them than to bring them to their destination. That’s what I was taught in school. »
Seriously, Judge Del Negro replied: “I advise you to stop. What you say is contrary to history. »
The trial of Gabriel Sohier-Chaput will continue on August 29.