Six years after arrests were first made in Operation SharQc, a jury is expected to finally hear an opening statement on Monday in the trial of seven men charged in a case that involves a conspiracy by the Hells Angels to commit murder over a period of eight years as well as the murders of seven men, including an innocent victim of the gang war.
The seven accused — alleged to be members or retired members of the Sherbrooke and Quebec City chapters of the Hells Angels — face a trial that could take as long as two years to complete. Jury selection alone required 13 court dates held during the month of May. The trial will be presided over by Superior Court Justice James Brunton and held at the Gouin courthouse located next to the Montreal Detention Centre on Gouin Blvd. It is a courthouse that was specifically built to handle cases involving several accused at the same time.
While 156 people were indicted on a variety of criminal accusations in Operation SharQc in April 2009, the trial beginning on Monday represents the first time evidence filed in the case will be presented to a jury.
Émery Martin, 54, a New Brunswick resident alleged to be a member of the biker gang’s Quebec City chapter, is the only one of the seven accused not charged with at least one of the seven counts of first-degree murder. Like all the other six he is charged with taking part in a conspiracy to commit murder that the Crown alleges began in July 1994 and ended eight years later in July 2002, a period that came to be commonly referred to as Quebec’s biker war. The charge lists 126 other people who were involved in the conspiracy (including dozens of men who have since been convicted in Operation SharQc) and alleges the people who were targets of the conspiracy were members of gangs (the Alliance, Dark Circle, Rock Machine and Bandidos) or independent drug dealers who refused to buy narcotics from the Hells Angels. But one of the men named among the seven counts of first-degree murder was an innocent victim of the conflict. Dany Beaudin, 28, was fatally shot on April 17, 2000, in St-Frédéric-de-Beauce, a town 270 kilometres northeast of Montreal, while standing outside a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts. Seven of the nine men on trial are charged with playing a role in Beaudin’s murder, an alleged case of mistaken identity.
The seven homicides were carried out between March 5, 1997 and Aug. 12, 2001. Four of the victims were found in the Eastern Townships and the others were in Quebec City, St-Frédéric-de-Beauce and Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier.
Christian Ménard, 37, an alleged member of the Sherbrooke chapter, is only charged with one of the murders — the Aug. 12, 2001, slaying of Robert Léger, 43, a member of the Bandidos biker gang who was shot outside his chalet in Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley, a town in the Eastern Townships. Ménard is the youngest of seven men on trial while Claude Berger, 66, alleged to be a retired member of the Sherbrooke chapter, is the oldest. Berger faces six counts of first-degree murder as well as the conspiracy charge.
The other accused are Yvon Tanguay, 65, Michel Vallières, 48, and brothers François and Sylvain Vachon (ages 43 and 48 respectively).
