A Canadian military officer is facing mutiny charges after he urged fellow soldiers not to help distribute COVID-19 vaccines during an...
A Canadian military officer is facing mutiny charges after he urged fellow soldiers not to help distribute COVID-19 vaccines during an anti-lockdown protest in Toronto late last year.
Officer Cadet Ladislas Kenderesi was charged on May 12 with persuading others to join in a mutiny as well as scandalous behavior unbecoming of an officer stemming from comments he made at a protest on December 5, according to Canadian military officials.
'I'm asking military, right now serving, truck drivers, medical, engineers, whatever you are, do not take this unlawful order (for) the distribution of this vaccine,' he was heard telling the crowd of demonstrators in a video posted to YouTube.
Canadian Officer Cadet Ladislas Kenderesi was charged with mutiny after he urged fellow soldiers to refuse to take part in distributing coronavirus vaccines at an anti-lockdown rally late last year
It is not clear whether Kenderesi has a history of opposition to vaccines, but referring to the shot as a 'killer vaccine,' his comments urging fellow members of the armed forces to forsake the government's Operation VECTOR vaccine distribution program would appear to have gone too far.
'I might get in a lot of s**t for doing this, but I don't care anymore,' he said.
A military spokesman said he has been relieved of military duties pending the outcome of the investigation against him.
News of the charges came as nearly 53 percent of all Canadians have been inoculated against the coronavirus, according to federal figures.
Organizers of the Toronto rally said Kenderesi was licensed to operate tanks and other military vehicles. He is a training officer for cadets aged 12 to 18
On May 14 a GoFundMe was launched to help pay for Kenderesi's legal defense.
Although it has since been deleted, an archive of the page referred to coronavirus vaccines as 'experimental gene therapy' and claimed that Kenderesi faces life in prison.
'I'm just saying a small prayer for myself, and a prayer for Canada and Canadians, that hopefully my efforts and what I have done is not in vain,' he said in a video attached to fundraising page, which has also been deleted.
Canadian military law specialist Michel Drapeau said that this was likely the first known instance of mutiny allegations in the Candaian armed forces since World War II.
December's rally was organized by Lamont Daigle, an influential anti-mask advocate
Charges of mutiny are practically unheard of in the country's military, according to a Canadian military law expert
'You would likely have to go back to the late 1940s in the Royal Canadian Navy for anything that might be similar,' he told the Ottawa citizen.
Introducing the soldier, Lamont Daigle, one of the organizers of the rally and an influential anti-mask advocate, said Kenderesi had training in chemical and biological warfare, and was licensed to operate tanks and other military vehicles as well as machine guns.
Kenderesi's actual responsibilities, according to military officials, are to the Cadet Organizations Administration and Training Service, where he serves in the Cadet Instructor Cadre training youth aged 12 to 18 years old.
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