Gabriel Sohier Chaput: Montreal man appeals conviction in hate crime case
A Quebec man found guilty of intentionally inciting hatred against Jews is seeking permission to appeal his conviction.
Gabriel Sohier Chaput’s attorney wrote in an application for leave to appeal filed last week that the judge created the appearance of bias in the courtroom.
Sohier Chaput was found guilty in late January by a Quebec court judge of incitement to hatred in connection with a 2017 article published on the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, one of hundreds of items he wrote for the site.
The trial was marked by debates between the prosecution and defense over which facts about the Holocaust and Nazi ideology should be established by an expert witness and which were well known enough for the judge to accept without further evidence.
Attorney Antonio Cabral also argues that the judge in fact and the law erred in his analysis of Sohier Chaput’s credibility as a witness when he compared Sohier Chaput to Machiavelli and suggested that he had quoted his readers to the “virus of hate” without citing any concrete evidence.
He wants the verdict overturned or a new trial ordered.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on March 2, 2023.
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