In Canada, they want to disarm law abiding citizens and make “deals ” with violent criminals for early release….. what’s wrong with this picture ?!?!?!!?!?!

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Violent offenders win secret early releases:

PUBLICATION: National Post
DATE: 2004.10.18
EDITION: All but Toronto
SECTION: News
PAGE: A1 / Front
BYLINE: Andrew McIntosh
SOURCE: National Post
DATELINE: OTTAWA

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Violent offenders win secret early releases: Affidavits allege
informants shave years off sentences with verbal deals

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OTTAWA – Four extremely violent offenders from Quebec are alleging that
they — and as many as three dozen other men — have enjoyed early and
unsupervised releases from jail after making secret verbal deals with
police and correctional authorities when they became police informants.

In one case, Montreal biker gang member Sylvain Beaudry confessed to
Montreal police in 2002 that he was paid $10,000 to kill a Toronto drug
dealer on Christmas Eve in 2000. He is now free on the streets of
Montreal after securing an informal early release deal when he became a
police informant.

Despite Mr. Beaudry’s videotaped murder confession, a transcript of
which has been obtained by the National Post, he has never been
prosecuted for the Toronto killing because his statements — made during
talks to turn him into a police informant — cannot legally be used as
evidence against him.

Although he is a suspect in the Toronto homicide probe, Mr. Beaudry is
being paid $52,000 by Montreal police to help with his food bills, and
taxpayers are also paying to have his biker tattoos removed, Quebec
government documents show.

He is expected to be a Crown prosecution witness in biker trials in
early 2005.

In another case, career criminal Patrick Henault was convicted in 2003
of a slew of charges including arson, conspiracy to commit murder,
attempted murder with a firearm and a series of drug and weapons
trafficking charges, documents show.

He earned 12 years in a federal jail. By December, 2003, he had been
transferred to a provincial facility and was enjoying day passes with an
escort.

By mid-May, 2004, he was no longer in prison at all and appeared as a
police informant witness at a criminal trial in Laval, north of
Montreal.

Under federal parole regulations, Mr. Henault should not have been
eligible for day passes until November, 2005, and not eligible for full
parole from a federal jail until June 2, 2007.

A spokeswoman for the Correctional Service of Canada was unaware of the
allegations and was unable to make any comment. A spokesman for the
Surete du Quebec in Montreal also declined to comment.

In sworn affidavits filed in Quebec Superior Court, four violent
offenders with past underworld connections allege these sorts of secret
deals with Quebec police forces and correctional officials are happening
all the time.

The four men — who are in addition to Mr. Beaudry and Mr. Henault –
allege Surete du Quebec officers and Quebec provincial prison wardens
quietly arrange for their transfer from federal jails to provincial
detention centres after they agree to become informants and testify
against rival members of their gangs.

Once at Quebec detention centres, the provincial jail wardens, working
with SQ detectives, help the violent offenders quickly secure successive
15-day passes for release from jail without supervision long before they
were normally eligible.

Such 15-day passes were often signed weeks and months in advance and
issued for several years so the violent offender-informants did not have
to return to jail when their two-week passes expired, the offenders say
in their sworn affidavits.

The offender-informants’ lengthy criminal records and serious violent
crimes normally rendered them ineligible for early release. Details
about their verbal release deals have allegedly been hidden from gang
members who faced criminal charges based on the offenders’ testimony,
the sworn affidavits state.

Many violent offenders who became police informants have been relocated
to other parts of English Canada, sources said.

The affidavits from the four offenders-turned-police-informants surfaced
this summer at a criminal trial in the Montreal area before Quebec
Justice Pierre Tremblay, and the documents were obtained last week by
the National Post.

Mr. Justice Pierre Tremblay declined to examine the allegations of a
parallel and secret early jail release system, saying his criminal court
was not the proper venue for such a serious investigation.

“I do not intend to transform myself into an inquiry commissioner
charged with examining the treatment reserved for informant-witnesses in
prison because this is not the proper forum to do this, even in an
indirect manner,” Judge Tremblay said while reading a judgment from the
bench.

Montreal criminal lawyer Jacques Normandeau gathered the sworn
affidavits from the violent offenders turned police informants,
including notorious bikers Denis Boivin, Normand Tremblay, Normand
Brisebois and Denis Bouthillette.

Mr. Normandeau said the men’s verbal deals with police to get
unsupervised early release are never spelled out in the formal contracts
they signed to become informant-witnesses for the police. All that is
disclosed is that Correctional Service Canada will work with Quebec
authorities to transfer the offender-informant to a provincial detention
centre while his services are required.

The failure to disclose the secret early release deals for informants
appears to violate laws and regulations governing such arrangements and
raises serious questions about public safety, Mr. Normandeau says.

“These violent offenders themselves are now concerned about this
parallel system because it’s gone too far,” Mr. Normandeau told the
National Post, saying the offenders are particularly concerned about the
Beaudry and Henault cases.

“They were very dangerous guys and they were let out anyway. The
authorities are not protecting the public, and the administration of
justice is being undermined because this is being hidden from the
court,” he added.

The case of Mr. Beaudry, a 35-year-old former Montreal biker, is the
most disturbing, government documents suggest.

On Aug. 24, 2002, he gave a videotaped confession to Montreal Urban
Community Police Detective-Sergeant Minh Tri Truong with full details of
how he earned $10,000 cash to murder Toronto Ecstasy dealer Quan Cham Lu
for a rival gang on Christmas Eve, 2000.

He claims he shot and killed Mr. Quan as the latter emerged at dawn from
the Guvernment, a downtown dance bar. Mr. Beaudry states he became
nervous and failed to carry out the killing during a first attempt a few
weeks earlier and names several other men from Toronto and Montreal who
helped plan and prepare for the murder.

In February, 2004, Mr. Beaudry was a Crown prosecutor’s star witness in
a case against several other Montreal bikers from the Bandidos gang.

Not long after his testimony, Mr. Beaudry was released from a Montreal
jail.

A man who earned $10,000 for a contract killing is now free on the
streets of the city totally unsupervised, and public safety is being put
at risk, according to Denis Boivin, who runs a Montreal-based
association for criminals turned informants.

Mr. Beaudry thought he secured immunity from prosecution for the Toronto
killing as part of his deal to turn informant for the Quebec
authorities.

But internal documents from both the Toronto Police Service homicide
squad and the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney-General, obtained by the
National Post, show Ontario authorities disagree and consider their
probe “active and ongoing.”

John McMahon, the director of Crown prosecutor operations in the Toronto
region, sent Mr. Beaudry an April 4, 2003, letter.

He said the confession Mr. Beaudry gave to the Montreal police about
killing Mr. Quan could not be used against him, but added: “The homicide
file remains open.”

“Please understand and appreciate that in the event that the Toronto
Police Service come into possession of evidence justifying the laying of
a charge of first degree murder or any other offence in connection with
this homicide and a reasonable prospect of conviction exists, you will
be prosecuted in Ontario for the offence(s),” Mr. McMahon wrote.

Ontario Attorney-General spokesman Brendan Crawley said last week the
murder probe remains active and if officials ever get enough “legally
admissible evidence” to support murder charges, charges will be laid.”