Assaulting Quebec premier nets probation

Conditional discharge for toss of paper ball

MONTREAL • A Quebec Court judge has sentenced a man to a conditional discharge for having tossed a balled up piece of paper at Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard during his speech at a vigil last year.

The decision means Esteban Torres Wicttorff, 21, will eventually be left with no criminal record for having assaulted the premier.

But as Judge Daniel Bédard noted in his decision on Friday, the record of the crime will remain on the public record for three years after Torres has completed the 18 months of probation that is part of his conditional sentence. Torres will also have to carry out community service as part of the sentence.

Crown prosecutor Amélie Rivard had requested a sentence that would remain on the public record as a means to dissuade others from carrying out what she characterized as an attack on democracy.

The incident occurred on June 16, 2016, at a park in Montreal’s Gay Village where thousands had gathered for a vigil for victims of a mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., where, four days earlier, a gunman walked into the Pulse nightclub and killed 49 people.

Torres, a well-known activist in the transgender community, was also a speaker at the vigil and was standing near Couillard when he threw something at the premier while shouting, “The revolution has begun.”

Security guards rushed Couillard away, and the premier was not injured.

The object thrown was never found, but when Torres entered his guilty plea earlier this month, Bédard was told it was a balled up piece of paper.

Torres was supposed to have a one-day trial on Oct. 6, but he opted instead to plead guilty to one count of assault with a weapon. A second charge, of causing a disturbance at a public gathering, Esteban Torres Wicttorff was handed 18 months of probation for assaulting Premier Philippe Couillard at a vigil for victims of a mass shooting in Orlando. was placed under a stay of proceedings.

Bédard noted in his decision that Couillard was not injured in the incident and that the “weapon” in question was a piece of paper.

“However, the person who received (the assault) is the premier, who was speaking in public following a tragic event during which several homosexual people were fatally shot, while inside a LGBT bar,” Bédard said.

“To assault someone to express disagreement after a person has said something is a crime and what’s more, if that person is a politician, the assault becomes even more a political act that is not justified and not justifiable, accepted or acceptable.”