For the first time since police announced Frédérick Silva was working with her a month and a half ago, revelations about the killer were made public at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday, La Certain learned.
Posted at 6:38pm
Daniel Renaud LaPresse
These revelations, “of more or less 60 pages and edited”, according to prosecutor Me Antoine Piché, concern an accomplice of Silva, son Giovanni Presta, who, like Silva, is accused of the murder of former Rockers member Sébastien Beauchamp, who died in the Died in a hail of bullets in a gas station parking lot in east Montreal on December 2018.
Presta’s first-degree murder trial is scheduled to begin September 8 alone before a judge.
Mr Piché informed the Honorable Judge Marc-André Blanchard of the Superior Court that he had no intention of using these 60 pages of statements or having Silva testify so as not to delay the start of the trial, whereupon Presta’s attorney Me Dominique Shofey , agreed.
“The prosecution states that it will not use evidence from the testimony of a person named Frédérick Silva for the trial of the defendant in the court, provided that it is preserved and kept within the deadlines set for autumn 2022, more specifically with regard to the taking of evidence and the pleading,” Justice Blanchard dictated to the clerk for inclusion in the record.
PRESS ARCHIVE
Sebastien Beauchamp was assassinated in December 2018.
Presta also faces charges of possession and manufacture of restricted or banned firearms, possession of silencers and illegal stockpiling of firearms, but that trial will come after the murder trial.
Dramatic turn
Frédérick Silva is considered by the police to be a contract killer who has received contracts from several criminal organizations in the Montreal area for years.
Listed as one of Canada’s most wanted criminals for the May 2017 wanton murder of a Montreal strip club patron — a murder for which he will soon face punishment — Silva was freed by investigators and members nearly two years ago in February 2019 by the Tactical Intervention Group of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).
But during his run, Silva carried out assassinations despite knowing he was one of the most wanted criminals.
He was accused of the murders of three people in autumn 2018, including Sébastien Beauchamp, and an attempted murder of the late clan leader Salvatore Scoppa in February 2017.
He was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 25 years, after a trial which he himself ended by acknowledging that the prosecution’s evidence was conclusive.
Silva and his lawyer Me Danièle Roy wanted to appeal, but after the murders of two of his relatives and after an SPVM investigator gained his trust, Frédérick Silva cooperated with the police.
Flanked by members of the tactical intervention group, he was “extricated” from the prison he was being held in at Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines and transported by helicopter to an undisclosed location.
The nervous environment
According to our information, Silva began confessing his crimes to investigators – what is called a “statement of life” – and providing certain information about contracts fulfilled or granted over the years within Montreal organized crime.
However, these statements must be confirmed by investigators and it will certainly be necessary to wait several months before this large-scale investigation that is about to begin will show any results.
Although he has started working together, Silva is reportedly yet to sign a deal with the authorities.
Several hand-picked investigators from the SPVM’s Serious and Organized Crimes Unit, as well as others from the Sûreté du Québec Crimes Against Persons Unit, have formed a joint team that will investigate any crimes that could result from Frederick Silva’s testimony.
The major investigations of recent years seem to show that Silva had direct access to influential Montreal organized crime figures and that he was not just an executor.
Criminal and court sources told La Presse that organized crime figures were nervous since Silva turned around.
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