A Crown prosecutor mentioned Wednesday that the trial for 3 males charged over their roles in an Alberta border blockade two years in the past has nothing to do with their beliefs or proper to protest.
Marco Van Huigenbos, Alex Van Herk and Gerhard Janzen have every pleaded not responsible to mischief over $5,000.
The protest over COVID-19 pandemic well being restrictions floor site visitors by Alberta’s most important border crossing with Montana to a halt for greater than two weeks in 2022.
“Many individuals had been affected by COVID-19 and responses to it. This prosecution isn’t about that,” mentioned Crown prosecutor Steven Johnston, turning to face the eight-man, six-woman jury.
“This trial isn’t about folks’s private emotions about COVID. This not a trial about the appropriate to protest.”
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Johnston advised jurors one can’t hinder using a freeway with the intention to obtain a purpose. He added the three accused performed a “key position” in blocking the freeway at Coutts, Alta., a village of round 200.
“The Crown doesn’t allege that these three males earlier than you dedicated a single act of violence,” he mentioned.
“What the Crown alleges is that they, as half of a bigger group, interfered with using a big freeway in southern Alberta for about two weeks. Successfully, they’d gained a management valve on Freeway 4, the freeway that belongs to the province.”
Johnston mentioned the proof will present the three males had been leaders of the protest and had closing say over what occurred. He mentioned that after 15 days, a single video message the boys posted on-line completed what Mounties couldn’t.
“The protest ended shortly thereafter,” he mentioned.
“They had been the group that had the flexibility to show on and off the blockade.”
Johnston mentioned he would name Jim Willett, the previous mayor of Coutts, as his first witness.
Previous to Johnston’s feedback, Justice Keith Yamauchi spent 40 minutes giving the jurors their directions and confused that the three males are presumed harmless till confirmed responsible past an inexpensive doubt.
“You’re the judges of the information … not legal professionals, not investigators,” Yamauchi mentioned.
“You should decide if every of them is responsible or not responsible of the cost they’re going through. It will be significant that you simply not type your opinions earlier than you hear all of the proof.”
The trial is scheduled to run till April 19.
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