Defendant knew he was spreading hate, Crown tells Montreal court

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Gabriel Sohier Chaput knew he was spreading hate when he published an article on The Daily Stormer website, crown prosecutor Patrick Lafrenière argued on Friday.

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The trial of the Montreal man accused of fomenting hatred has resumed with closing arguments to the crown after a delay of more than four months.

Sohier Chaput knew that by invoking the Holocaust and “continuous Nazism” he was not only being offensive but fomenting hatred against an identifiable group, an indictable offense that carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison, Lafrenière argued.

“He posted on a site, The Daily Stormer, that was clearly visible to the general public and was clearly an instrument to spread hate,” Lafrenière argued.

He said that anyone reading his comments can conclude that he was spreading a hate message against Jews.

While Lafrenière was presenting his arguments, a group staged a protest in front of the courthouse denouncing the authorities’ handling of the Sohier Chaput investigation.

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The group Montréal Antifasciste called the process a “botched police investigation and ill-prepared prosecution, which is all the more galling given the overwhelming amount of evidence already gathered by Montreal Gazette journalists.”

A former IT consultant, Sohier Chaput was the focus of a series of Gazette articles in 2018 that described him as one of North America’s most prominent neo-Nazis.

The series reported that he organized meetings for neo-Nazis in Montreal and attended a 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a right-wing extremist drove his vehicle into a crowd and killed a 32-year-old counter-protester.

Writing under the name Zeiger, Sohier Chaput was the second most prolific contributor to The Daily Stormer. He faces a charge of knowingly promoting hate against an identifiable group, stemming from a 2017 article warning that “it will be the year of action.”

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“We need to make sure that no (social justice warrior) or Jew can remain safe without being activated,” the article said. “Non-stop Nazism, everywhere, until the very streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies.”

In March, defense attorney Hélène Poussard said that Sohier Chaput’s writings might have been repugnant, but that he had a right to do so under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Hate speech will often blame the target group for something, like Jews being responsible for the World Trade Center attacks. Mr. Sohier (Chaput) did not do this,” Poussard argued.

He added that the writings can be considered criminal if a reasonable person who reads them is incited to act against the target group. That was not the case with the writings in question, Poussard said.

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He noted that among the 800 to 1,000 articles Sohier Chaput wrote, prosecutors were only able to use one as the basis for criminal charges.

Testifying in his defense, Sohier Chaput said that his writings were exaggerations and should not be taken seriously.

Montréal Antifasciste said that whatever the verdict, it is up to all citizens to eliminate hate.

“We must deny Nazis, white supremacists and other fascists room to grow and develop,” the group wrote.

“We must all continue to fight the far right and fascist threat in our daily lives, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in our cultural spaces, and everywhere else for as long as it takes!”

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