A Montreal-based neo-Nazi who was found guilty in January of the willful promotion of hatred against Jews said this week he will seek to appeal the verdict, CBC News reported.
Gabriel Sohier-Chaput, 36, who wrote articles on the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer under the alias "Charles Zeiger,” was found guilty by a Quebec court on January 23
In a decision delivered at the Montreal courthouse, Quebec Court Judge Manlio Del Negro did not accept Sohier-Chaput’s defense that what he wrote for the Daily Stormer was satirical or intended as exaggeration.
Del Negro took the unusual step of ordering that Sohier-Chaput be immediately handcuffed upon being found guilty and taken into custody after the hearing, calling him "extremely dangerous to the public.” The defendant had not been detained since the warrant was issued for his arrest in 2018. The judge moved to release Sohier-Chaput only after he agreed to follow a series of conditions.
His case is set for sentencing on May 11. Sohier-Chaput faces a maximum sentence of two years.
The judge wrote that Sohier-Chaput “intentionally promoted hatred, through the Daily Stormer platform, against people of Jewish faith.”
The verdict rested on an article written by the defendant in 2017, that he claimed was satirical, which made use of antisemitic memes and commentary, including praising neo-Nazi posters plastered on a British Columbia bus stop.
It also made fun of a Holocaust survivor who was quoted in coverage of the vandalism, referring to him as an “oven-dodger” and urging "non-stop Nazism, everywhere, until the very streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies."
Sohier-Chaput's lawyer submitted to the court a request for an appeal this week, accusing the judge of impartiality and failing to prove his client had powers similar to "Machiavelli" over his readers, according to CBC.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)