Gérald Nicolas, 51, took “specific actions,” including traveling to Haiti to coordinate a group of individuals intent on participating in a coup against established authority, the RCMP said in a news release Thursday. Nicholas faces three charges, including leaving Canada to facilitate terrorist activity, facilitating terrorist activity and providing property for terrorist purposes. RCMP say the charges stem from an Integrated National Security Team investigation that began after information was shared by the local police service in Lévis, on Quebec’s south coast. The investigation, which began in July 2021, revealed that Nicolas allegedly planned to stage an armed revolution in Haiti and eventually seize power.
Nicholas allegedly recruited people for armed revolution, police say
RCMP Sgt. Charles Poirier said investigators believed Nicholas began hatching his plan as early as January 2020. “He actually managed to travel to Haiti and other parts of Central America and South America. He went to a lot of countries there to recruit people to get some funding and also get weapons, which he didn’t do,” Poirier told CBC News. . A person holds a photo of the late Haitian president Jovenel Moise during his memorial service at the Pantheon National Museum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 20, 2021. Moise was assassinated at his home on July 7. (Matias Delacroix/The Associated Press) Poirier says this investigation is not related to the July 2021 killing of Jovenel Moïse. Nicolas is expected to appear in court in Quebec on December 1.
The accused denies all the charges
Nicolas, in a conversation with Radio-Canada, denied the accusations, saying he was set up by a woman he met online on the Seeking Arrangement dating site. He acknowledged sending money and traveling to Haiti, but claims it was all for “people in need.” He says the reason he was charged has to do with his Haitian nationality. “If I were white I wouldn’t be talking to you today,” Nicholas said. “The only thing I did is go to Haiti and educate the Haitians to take their future [in their hands].”
