WARNING: This story contains descriptions of racist online content targeting Jews, Muslims, the 2SLGBTQ+ community and others.
The defence team for an alleged terror propagandist argued Tuesday that the Crown’s case is built on shaky ground, with tenuous links between the accused’s camera and racist videos found online, and shoddy testimony from a Crown expert on right-wing extremism.
Patrick Gordon Macdonald, 27, is charged with participating in the terrorist activity of Atomwaffen Division by helping produce videos and other images, facilitating terrorist activity, and inciting hate against identifiable groups for one or more terrorist entities, including Atomwaffen Division and the neo-Nazi James Mason.
He’s alleged to have done it in 2018 and 2019 at the ages of 20 and 21 in Ottawa, Belleville, Ont., and Saint-Ferdinand, Que., among other places.
He has pleaded not guilty. The allegations against him haven’t been proven.
Banking records, cell tower pings at odds
In his closing arguments, defence lawyer Ariya Sheivari argued that the connection between Macdonald’s camera and the videos is “speculative.”
A Crown expert testified that one of the videos contains image files, and that those image files contain metadata that includes the exact serial number of a Fujifilm camera that was seized by police at Macdonald’s home.
But the pictures themselves were never actually seen or uncovered, and Sheivari said it’s impossible to know whether they contain anything like what’s seen in the video. He also pointed out that the metadata about Macdonald’s camera wasn’t attached to the video files.
“How is this court supposed to accept they were filmed with that specific camera? It seems like the video should have that same information,” Sheivari said.
He also argued that a unique time offset of 391 days and 15 hours used by the Crown to tie the camera to the two other videos isn’t strong enough evidence.
In addition, cellphone records show Macdonald’s phone was pinging off cell towers around Toronto at about the same time his bank card was being used to make purchases in Saint-Ferdinand, Que., during the filming window for one of the videos.
In her reply submissions, prosecutor Catherine Legault said she looked into that but couldn’t explain it, other than to say that a phone and bank cards can be in two different places at once.
Crown expert ‘really not an expert’
Douglas Baum, Macdonald’s lead defence lawyer, tore into the credentials of Crown expert Barbara Perry during his closing submissions, saying she made a “whopper of a mistake” that “antagonized the heck” out of Baum when she testified that the nuclear warning symbol in Atomwaffen’s logo had been used by the Nazis. (In fact, the nuclear warning symbol wasn’t created until after the Second World War.)
Among Baum’s other complaints were that none of the murders that Perry testified are linked to right-wing extremism by lone actors can be tied ideologically to Macdonald’s case, that her report contains no evidence of Atomwaffen Division activities in Canada, and that her sources were secondary and anecdotal with no original research.
“It is not illegal, it is not unlawful, to be a racist. It is not unlawful to burn bibles or gay Pride flags or be prejudiced,” Baum said.
Justice Robert Smith interjected: “If you publish hateful videos and images, then you’re into another area. Watching videos in your basement is one thing, but putting it out in public, what do you say about that? That’s what I’m faced with here.”
Baum said that’s not an issue unless Smith finds that it was done in support of a terrorist group. And to do that, Baum told Smith the judge has to rely on Perry’s testimony alone.
Hateful pamphlet found hidden in ceiling
Part of the Crown’s burden is proving that Atomwaffen Division was a terrorist group back in 2018 and 2019, when Macdonald allegedly committed the crimes. That’s because it wasn’t officially labelled a terrorist entity in Canada until 2021.
The three Atomwaffen videos played during the trial and a recruitment pamphlet found in Macdonald’s ceiling are evidence enough that the paramilitary organization was engaging in terrorist activity at the time in question, Legault told the judge.
The pamphlet was also found online in English and Russian. It says Atomwaffen members must pledge an oath to be “merciless towards all enemies of the Aryan race,” and to be ready to give up their lives for the fight.
In the videos, narrators with modified voices and subtitles spew racist stereotypes and calls for violent action. One shows people in combat fatigues and skull masks tossing the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’an, a book on philosophy and a Pride flag into a bonfire. Between shots, text panels taking up the entire screen call for viewers to “purge the weak” before a swastika appears.
Another shows people wearing skull masks moving through woods and shooting firearms. Closer to the end, the flags of the U.S., Israel and the European Union are shown on the ground being set on fire with a torch, interspersed with shots of people with firearms storming a building in tactical formation.
“Join us or perish with the rest,” the narrator screams. “Stay tuned shooters,” is the last text panel to appear.
Time offset ‘so peculiar’ that it IDs his camera
The Crown is arguing that Macdonald helped film the videos because of the metadata linked to the camera seized from his home, as well as banking and cellular phone records that place him in the vicinity of two places where RCMP and the Crown say some shots were filmed: an old cement plant in Belleville, Ont., and an abandoned schoolhouse in Saint-Ferdinand, Que.
The seized camera’s date and time was off by 391 days and 15 hours, and a camera with the same unique time offset recorded parts of the other two videos.
“This date offset of the Fujiflm camera that was seized is a signature. It’s so peculiar that it’s possible to identify this camera based on this time offset,” Legault told the judge.
In addition, a tactical vest, masks, combat fatigues, boots, walkie talkies and a pair of sunglasses closely resemble those seen in the videos, the Crown argued.
The judge was also shown images glorifying Nazis and neo-Nazis that were posted online under the Dark Foreigner alias. Macdonald admitted to being Dark Foreigner in a letter he wrote to fight restrictions on his ability to travel, which was seized from his home, the Crown said.
“What the accused has posted online goes beyond just freedom of expression. He enters the realm of terrorist activity when he makes a display of violence, when he threatens the life or endangers the safety of people,” Legault said.
When the judge asked whether any of the images made by Dark Foreigner were themselves illegal, Legault said that while “each image on its own may seem innocuous, it’s the small drizzle that becomes a bigger pond of poison that is the danger here,” to recruit people into the ideology and spread hate.
The judge is expected to make his decision in 2025.
