With price on ex-Hells Angel’s head, SharQc trial was on high alert

Staff in charge of security at the Gouin Courthouse requested extraordinary security measures be put in place at the Hells Angels murder trial because they believed the key informant witness who was about to testify has a $500,000 contract on his head.

The trial of the five men charged in Operation SharQc was aborted last Friday after Superior Court Justice James Brunton ruled the Crown abused procedure by withholding evidence concerning the informant, former Hells Angel Sylvain Boulanger, from defence lawyers for years.

While hearing arguments on the disclosure issue over the latter half of the past month, Brunton also held a special closed-door hearing, on Sept. 29 and 30, to hear evidence from the people in charge of security at the courthouse.

According to a decision that was never delivered because the trial was aborted, but made public on Thursday, Boulanger was about to be called as a witness in the murder trial and security officials considered the potential threat to his safety to be serious.

Boulanger was a member of the Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels before he decided to become an informant for the police.

Statements he made to investigators formed the basis of the SharQc investigation and led to the arrests of more than 100 of the gang’s members in 2009. If he had testified in the murder trial it would have been his first appearance in public in years.

“There are threats against the witness Boulanger. There is a contract on his life which calls for the payment of $500,000 for the person who kills him. His photo was seen posted in different locations associated with the Hells Angels, not just in Quebec but elsewhere in (Canada). The photos were accompanied by (statements suggesting informants) have to be eliminated. Considering the nature of the Hells Angels organization, their will and their capacity, the threats are considered serious by the authorities,” Brunton wrote in his summary of testimony provided by Benoit Vigneault, a sergeant with the special constables who testified at the special closeddoor hearing.

Brunton called the closed-door hearing because one of the requests from courthouse security called for all members of the jury in the trial to undergo the same type of search that all members of the public are required to go through when they enter the Gouin Courthouse.

The judge was concerned the added security measures, with the trial already a month old, would be prejudicial toward the accused. He noted that no one on the juries assembled for biker trials held at the special courthouse a decade ago had to go through the security measures.

Members of the public are required to turn over any briefcases, purses and personnel effects to special constables who place the items in bins and run them through an X-ray machine. Courthouse security also wanted defence lawyers to have to go through the same measures even though they had no evidence a lawyer, or a member of the jury, might be interested in killing Boulanger. Two defence lawyers who were specifically chosen to be part of the hearing informed Brunton that requiring attorneys to be searched would have been unprecedented.

Courthouse security also wanted to install a metal detector at the door of the courtroom even through there is already one located at the entrance to the courthouse.