A 36-year-old Montreal man was found guilty Monday of wilfully promoting hatred against Jews in a 2017 article he wrote for a neo-Nazi website.
Quebec court Judge Manlio Del Negro ruled that Gabriel Sohier Chaput intended to promote hate against Jewish people in the article published by the Daily Stormer. The judge ordered that Sohier Chaput be taken into custody, describing him as someone "extremely dangerous" to the public.
In his ruling, Del Negro found that Sohier Chaput "actively promoted the detestation of people of the Jewish faith. Not only did he foment hate, he encouraged his readers to act."
The article, one of more than 800 that Sohier Chaput wrote for the site, contained an ethnic slur against Chinese people in the title and referred to neo-Nazis "triggering" Jews.
Sohier Chaput admitted to writing part of the article, including a section that said 2017 would be "the year of action" and that called for "non-stop Nazism everywhere until the streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies."
Del Negro rejected the accused's claim that some of the article's more inflammatory slurs, including a reference to a Holocaust survivor as an "oven dodger," were written by someone else. The judge noted that Sohier Chaput, who wrote under the name "Zeiger," had never attempted to distance himself from the article until his trial.
That said, even the parts of the article Sohier Chaput admitted to writing, and the context in which they appeared, were sufficient to convict him, Del Negro said.
Sohier Chaput had argued that the article was intended to be taken ironically and that he had used humour and exaggeration. The judge found those claims had no credibility.
"The court believes that the explanations he provided are specious, insincere, opportunistic, misleading, far-fetched and implausible," Del Negro said, frequently looking up from his written ruling to fix Sohier Chaput in his gaze.
"The victims of the Holocaust, Jews and other groups, as well as the victims of other genocides perpetuated in history, as well as their families, deserve to be left in peace," Del Negro said. "Seventy seven years after the end of World War II, to persist in trivializing the role that Nazism played in regards to the Jews during the Holocaust and to continue to target them is deeply shocking."
The decision prompted applause from some members of the public gallery.
Defence lawyer Helene Poussard questioned the judge about the immediate detention of her client, noting that people found guilty are usually not detained while awaiting sentencing, even in more serious matters, adding that Sohier Chaput has obeyed his conditions since 2017.
Del Negro said his crime is "counter to the values of our society" and that he could flee, hide behind a pseudonym and continue to spread hate.
Poussard then asked if her client was being detained because she had filed a formal complaint about the judge's conduct. Del Negro said he would not answer that question. Sohier Chaput was then handcuffed and taken into the prisoner's box.
Del Negro said he will decide Monday afternoon whether Sohier Chaput remains detained while he awaits sentencing.
Closing arguments were originally held in the summer, but the trial was extended to debate what link the judge could draw between Nazi ideology and the Holocaust without testimony having been provided by an expert witness.
The prosecution held that the link between Nazism and the Holocaust and the fact that the Nazi regime engaged in the continuous persecution of Jews, including the murder of millions, was an accepted fact -- eventually providing citations for those claims in encyclopedias.
The defence argued many of those facts needed to be demonstrated by calling an expert witness.
Del Negro sided with the prosecution and ruled that the link between Nazi ideology and the murder of millions of Jews during the Second World War is so notorious and uncontestable that it is not subject to debate between reasonable people.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2023.
