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Date: 4/21/02
Time: 3:45:03 PM
Remote Name: 205.188.197.163
MONTREAL -- The Crown said Friday it will present eyewitness accounts, wiretaps and possibly a police informant at the trial of 17 bikers linked to the Hells Angels.
The accused face charges of gangsterism, drug-trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder. The alleged intended victims were drug dealers in the rival Bandidos biker gang.
The first witness could appear next week.
In her opening statement to the six-man, six-woman jury, Crown prosecutor Madeleine Giauque said Hells Angels members systematically eliminated their competition in the lucrative drug trade on Montreal island.
"There were a group of men who decided that the rules of society were not for them,'' Giauque told the jury.
"These people belong to an international company called the Hells Angels - whose business is to buy and sell drugs.''
The suspects were arrested last March in a provincewide sweep of the Hells and their associates in Quebec and Ontario.
Among the accused is Francis Boucher, the son of Hells Angels leader Maurice (Mom) Boucher.
The group of 17 are the first to be tried at the specially built courthouse next to Bordeaux jail in north-end Montreal.
The new facility was constructed to avoid risks involved in transporting the bikers from the jail to the downtown courthouse.
Justice Jean-Guy Boilard of Quebec Superior Court will preside over the trial.
The Crown's case is extensive and it could take eight months to present all the evidence.
The trial is further complicated by the fact that all 17 accused have the right to cross-examine Crown witnesses through their lawyers.
Jury selection was laborious, with hundreds of potential jurors rejected or excused for a variety of reasons over the nine-day selection process.
The Hells Angels and its puppet club, the Rockers, have waged a brutal turf war with the Bandidos for control of Quebec's illegal drug trade. The war has claimed more than 160 lives over the past six years, including an 11-year-old bystander.