13 MURDERED IN $100M DRUG WAR, PROSECUTOR SAYS

Quebec Biker Trial: 13 Accused Removed 'Obstacles' For Hells Angels: Crown

MONTREAL - They look like they could be a garage-league hockey team, but to
the Crown, the 13 men are cold-blooded killers who left 13 victims in a
biker war for control of a $100-million-a-year narcotics business.

In his statement to jurors as their massive murder trial opened yesterday,
Andre Vincent, the Crown attorney, compared the accused with soldiers and
generals who wage war for their country.

"Their motive is a lot less noble. It is money -- lots and lots of money,"
he said, showing the court a photo of a safe seized by police stuffed with
stacks of $50 and $20 bills.

Mr. Vincent said that between December, 1996, and June, 2000, the accused
took part in an orchestrated campaign to eliminate the Hells Angels'
"enemies." Anyone who challenged their control over the Montreal drug
market was an "obstacle" to be removed, he said.

With 13 people on trial for 13 killings, it is one of the largest murder
trials ever in Quebec, scheduled to last into 2003. The accused, all of
whom have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, are alleged to be
members at some level of the Hells Angels hierarchy. It took the court
clerk six minutes just to read out the charges. Nine of the accused are
charged in all 13 killings, while the rest face between two and nine
charges each.

Mr. Vincent said he will show that even if they did not all pull a trigger,
the accused are guilty of murder. In recorded conversations, Hells Angels
members would remind each other that they were "at war," Mr. Vincent said.
"And the war effort comes from the entire group."

He acknowledged that the victims were not "angels" -- in all but one case
they were members or associates of rival drug gangs, primarily the Rock
Machine. The victim who was not a gang member, Serge Hervieux, had the
misfortune of working at a garage owned by a Rock Machine member. Mr.
Vincent said Mr. Hervieux was shot when an assassin mistook him for his
boss. Police later discovered the stolen car used by the killer, containing
a photo of the intended target.

Mr. Vincent said all the killings -- from the Dec. 20, 1996, shooting of
Pierre Beauchamp to the June 6, 2000, shooting of Francois Gagnon -- share
important characteristics. All the victims died from gunshots in a
"settling-of-accounts" style, he said. The assassin approached his victim
from a hiding spot, fired his gun and fled without saying a word. Some were
shot inside their homes, one as he cut his grass, several as they got out
of their cars in front of their houses.

The ability to track victims to their homes was evidence of a sophisticated
network of intelligence and surveillance, Mr. Vincent said. He said the
trial will hear that some of the information leading to the killings was
provided by workers with the province's automobile-insurance board. Another
invaluable source was the theft from a police officer's hotel room of a
computer containing a database of Rock Machine members.

That information was subsequently widely circulated in the form of a photo
album, Mr. Vincent said. "It was a gift from heaven that spread quickly
through the entire group," he said.

In almost all cases, the killer or killers used a stolen car, usually with
stolen licence plates, that they later abandoned and attempted to set on
fire. "There are too many coincidences. It will be up to you to determine
if there is a logical connection between all these crimes," Mr. Vincent
told the jury. All of the murders, he added, were committed "in cold blood
and in a pre-meditated fashion."

The trial will include testimony from informants, he said, one of whom will
describe how the Hells Angels placed bounties of up to $100,000 a head on
members of the rival gang. He said fingerprint and DNA evidence recovered
from gloves and hats left by the shooters will link some of the accused to
specific killings

The trial, before Justice Rejean Paul of Quebec Superior Court, is taking
place in a new high-security courthouse next to the Bordeaux jail in
north-end Montreal. Built at a cost of $16.5-million, the courthouse allows
the accused to be transported from their cells and back without stepping
outside.

The 13 accused sat in four rows inside a glassed-in cubicle across the
courtroom from the jurors yesterday. Some wore sport jackets over
open-collared shirts, others sweaters or windbreakers. They listen to the
proceedings over speakers and must use a phone to communicate with their
lawyers inside the courtroom. A few took notes yesterday while others tried
to stifle yawns.

Mr. Vincent said two of the accused, Denis Houle and Gilles Mathieu, are
founding members of the Hells Angels Nomads chapter, the organization's top
echelon in Quebec. He offered jurors a crash course in the intricate Hells
Angels hierarchy, which ranges from affiliated clubs like the Scorpions to
the "farm team" Rockers and up to the Nomads. Over the period the killings
were committed, many of the accused advanced up the hierarchy, he said.

He said police have determined that the Hells Angels Montreal drug
operation was making $100-million a year in profits. "If you're making
$100-million, there's good reason to try to have exclusive control of the
territory," he said.

Apart from Messrs. Hervieux, Beauchamp and Gagnon, the victims were Marc
Belhumeur, Yvon Roy, Johnny Plescio and a year later his brother Tony
Plescio, Jean Rosa, Pierre Bastien, Stephane Morgan, Daniel Boulet, Richard
Parent and Patrick Turcotte.