A Windsor man has been found guilty of terrorism.<\/p>\n
Seth Bertrand, 22, was charged with a single count of participating in a terrorist group for applying to the National Socialist Order (NSO) and Atomwaffen Division (AWD).<\/p>\n
In February 2021, he applied online to a recruiter – using his school-issued tablet – offering his military and mechanic skills and admitting to holding offensive views about white supremacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not necessary that the activity actually be carried out, or that he knew the specific activity that will ultimately be carried out,\u201d federal prosecutor Xenia Proestos said Thursday.<\/p>\n
There is no evidence Bertrand carried out any activities on behalf of AWD or NSO.<\/p>\n
Justice Maria Carroccia broke her 45-minute judgment into four parts; had the prosecutor proved AWD is the same as NSO, did Bertrand know they were a terrorist group, did he offer to participate in their activities, and did he offer to participate in an effort to enhance their activities.<\/p>\n
On all four, Carroccia found yes, all had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe accused espoused the ideology that was antisemitic, anti-Black, and anti-LGBTQ,\u201d the judge said. \u201cHe indicates in the application that he filed to join AWD\/NSO that he wants to be a part of a group that is doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Bobby Russon said his client\u2019s reaction is \u201cflat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an unusual situation where I know, as his counsel and Mr. Bertrand knows as a person that he committed a moral wrong,\u201d Russon said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t hide from that. We agreed with everything he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russon sought to argue that applying to join a terrorist organization is not the same thing as carrying out an act on their behalf.<\/p>\n
And he tried to discredit expert evidence on terrorist groups for failing to have written proof about what terrorist groups do or believe.<\/p>\n
Justice Carroccia ruled the expert evidence was admissible and reliable because of how terrorist groups operate anonymously and clandestinely, with little physical evidence about what they subscribe to or how they choose to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no shock here. There\u2019s no feeling like you weren\u2019t heard,\u201d Russon said.<\/p>\n
He won\u2019t say whether they are considering an appeal.<\/p>\n
Russon and Proestos must now draft their sentencing submissions for the court.<\/p>\n
Proestos told CTV News there is no minimum sentence but the maximum penalty for participation in terrorism is 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n
Russon said there is no similar case in Canadian law for which to rely upon for sentencing precedent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not trying to downplay the significance of this. You know, his ideologies are deplorable,\u201d Russon said. \u201cI don\u2019t know of any case where an accused actual act was as low on the bar of criminality, and was convicted of a terrorism offence.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted, however, he believes his client\u2019s views are very different today than when he applied online in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cHating people for any reason is bad, but hating people based solely on, race, sex, gender, creed, religion, or anything like that is obviously deplorable and has no place in the society,\u201d Russon said. \u201cThat\u2019s how I have always felt. That\u2019s not always how Mr. Bertrand felt, but I do believe it is how he feels now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Windsor man has been found guilty of terrorism. Seth Bertrand, 22, was charged with a single count…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":127840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-127839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114990636331394313","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}