[Indigsol] Mohawk protester Shawn Brant found not guilty of uttering threats

[Rhonda Sussman]

Mohawk protester Shawn Brant was found not guilty on Monday on
three charges of uttering threats at soldiers during a 2006
altercation at a demonstration.

A justice in Napanee, Ont., also cleared his co-accused Jerome
Barnhart on two charges of uttering threats and one charge of
mischief. A third man, Mario Baptiste Jr., was convicted of two
counts of assault soldiers and one count of mischief for
attacking a vehicle.

The three men were part of a group of several dozen Mohawks from
the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory that were part of a
demonstration at land slated for a housing development near the
eastern Ontario town of Deseronto.

Brant at the time said the demonstrators wanted to communicate
to the government and the community their claim to the property,
saying they never officially surrendered the property to the
federal government.

The group says they were handing out pamphlets to motorists on a
highway near Deseronto when a military convoy from Canadian
Forces Base Borden tried to pass through.

Brant, 43, was the main organizer of a high-profile blockade of
a highway and rail line in eastern Ontario last June 29 as part
of a nationwide Aboriginal day of protest. He faces charges in
connection with that blockade.

He said he believes the 2006 charges had an effect on his
treatment when charged in that blockade and other protests.

"I know it weighed heavy on the judges when I was denied bail on
two different occasions," he said.

Brant led a dissident group of Mohawk activists to set up
barricades on Highway 2 and across a CN Rail line near Deseronto
in eastern Ontario on June 29.

Threats of barricades also caused police to shut down a stretch
of Highway 401, Canada's busiest highway, before protesters had
a chance to block it.


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