"The Court Rejects His Entire Account"

"In the final analysis, the court does not retain the hodgepodge of explanations provided by Gabriel Sohier Chaput about his writings."

"[The Court] rejects his entire account, because his explanations leave no doubt."

"The Court finds that the explanations provided are specious, insincere, opportunistic, deceptive, far-fetched, implausible, concealers of the truth, and were cobbled together to conceal the true intention of the accused."

"[Sohier Chaput] intentionally promoted hatred, through the Daily Stormer platform, against people of Jewish faith."

"The evidence in this regard is overwhelming. In closing allow [myself] to make the following observation: the victims [Jews and other groups] of the Holocaust and also the victims of other genocides perpetrated throughout history, as well as their families deserve to be left in peace. The suffering they have been put through is inexpressible and defies the meaning of humanity."

"In the light of all of [Sohier Chaput's] writings, the court could not ignore what the ideology of Nazism meant. On the contrary, through his writings we can infer that [Sohier Chaput] was well versed in the matter of hateful ideology that Nazism represented and the role it played during the Second World War."

Judge Manlio Del Negro, Montreal, Quebec Court

"2017 will be the year of action."

"We need to make sure no [social justice warrior] or Jew can remain safely untriggered."

"Non-stop Nazism, everywhere, until the very streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies."

"In order to get people's attention, you have to go to the extreme, toward humour, absurdity, provocation."

"Obviously, that's not the literal message."

Posting by Gabriel Sohier Chaput, neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website

Gabriel Sohier-Chaput, right, known online by his neo-Nazi pseudonym Zeiger, is seen at the Montreal courthouse on July 12, 2023. He was found guilty of the wilful promotion of hatred earlier this year. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

 

Both the prosecution and the defence -- in this case of a man convicted of promoting hatred against Jews -- recommended a three-month sentence, along with a year's probation. Gabriel Sohier Chaput was convicted in January of hate-mongering aimed at the Jewish community, summed up in an article he wrote that was published on the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website. Justice Del Negro, on the other hand, felt a three-month jail sentence for promoting hate would serve to trivialize the crime.

According to Antonio Cabral, defence lawyer, his client is no longer involved with on line neo-Nazis; he is a changed man. To which Judge Del Negro responded that a pre-sentencing report indicated on the contrary, that Sohier Chaput continues to hold the same views that he subscribed to when he wrote the antisemitic article; that the sentencing hearing apology uttered by Sohier Chaput was 'opportunistic'. He is prepared to deliver his sentence on September 22.

In the interim, the judge wanted it to be known that he did not accept the defence by Sohier Chaput of having had his sentiments misunderstood; that what he wrote for the Daily Stormer, a website dedicated to airing vile antisemitic screeds, just happened to be satirical in nature, an intended exaggeration, as a mockery in other words of antisemitism.

 

Sohier Chaput was charged in 2018 under the Criminal Code, with the wilful promotion of hatred by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, [that] wilfully promote hatred against any identifiable group. A charge that carries a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment. Sohier Chaput had been the focus in 2018 of a series of articles published by the Montreal Gazette describing him as one of North America's most prominent Daily Stormer writers.

 

The articles which linked Sohier Chaput to the Zeiger pseudonym that his published articles used, drew the attention of B'nai Brith Canada. That investigative work revealing his true identity as the author of hundreds of articles on the website also revealed he had organized meetings for a local neo-Nazi group. When B'nai Brith filed a complaint to the Montreal police about Sohier Chaput, a warrant for his arrest was issued on October 30, 2018.

 

During his trial, his defence lawyer identified him as the person who had posted between 800 and 1,000 items under the Zeiger pseudonym. The lawyer argued during the trial that what her client had written was repugnant, but under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he had a right to post what he wrote.

"The only regrets and empathetic thoughts he expressed are directed at his loved ones, who have experienced the direct consequences of his delinquent actions."

"[The lack of emotion in his explanations were found] all the more disturbing when he describes the pleasure he derived from writing] 'things that can’t be said because of history'."

Probation officer Gabrielle Boulanger-Dumont

"When cross-examined on the meaning of his thought about the sentence: 'Non-Stop Nazism, everywhere' and if it could be perceived as promoting the extermination or persecution of the Jews, his answers were evasive, he seemed to want to avoid answering it."

"Counsel for the prosecution had to repeat the same question three times before he answered 'No'."

Judge Manlio Del Negro

"I found the Daily Stormer’s I.P. address, which turned out to be registered to a Canadian company called Frantech Solutions. It was here that I encountered Francisco Dias, the founder of Frantech and two affiliated companies, BuyVM and Buyshared."

"Through his companies, Dias rents out server space in Las Vegas, New Jersey, and Luxembourg—the last of which, according to BuyVM’s site, offers especially 'strong privacy and freedom of speech laws'."

"When I contacted Dias to ask him about his involvement with the Daily Stormer, he replied at some length. 'I try my very best to take the most neutral stance when it comes to things like this', he wrote. 'I’d prefer they weren’t hosted here, but minus some people trying to sling bad press at me, they’ve broken no laws I’m aware of'."

"BuyVM’s terms of service prohibited 'Any content that violates Canadian, United States, and Luxembourg laws'. Since Canada has a law explicitly forbidding the promotion or advocacy of genocide, I pointed Dias to a recent Daily Stormer article that called Slobodan Praljak, a former general in the Croatian Army who was convicted of war crimes against Bosnia’s Muslim population, a hero; the article also compares the murder of thousands of Muslims to 'spraying termites'. Dias said that he hadn’t heard from Canadian law enforcement, though he was 'sure' people had reached out to them about it. (BuyVM’s terms of service have since been updated to indicate that the company does its best 'to follow a Law of the Land stance when it comes to content hosted within our services'—without specifying any particular law or land.) Moreover, Dias contended, he only provided the site with bandwidth; someone else hosted the data."

Talia Lavin, The New Yorker

Founder and operator of The Daily Stormer website, Andrew Anglin. (Wikimedia Commons via JTA)

MISSOULA, Montana — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the arrest of a neo-Nazi website publisher accused of ignoring a $14 million judgment against him for orchestrating an antisemitic harassment campaign against a Montana woman’s family.

US District Judge Dana Christensen issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Andrew Anglin, founder and operator of The Daily Stormer website.

Attorneys for Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh have said Anglin did not pay any portion of the August 2019 judgment and has ignored their requests for information about his whereabouts, his operation of the website and other assets. November 11, 2022 -- Associated Press