Montreal news outlet La Presse says a hit man offered $100,000 to have one of its crime reporters assassinated.
La Presse says convicted killer Frédérick Silva, who turned police informant in 2022, confessed to issuing the contract in 2021 on investigative reporter Daniel Renaud, but the hit was never carried out.
Quebec Premier François Legault denounced the plot against Renaud, saying today “it doesn’t make sense” that in Quebec a journalist would be targeted for death for doing his job.
Éric-Pierre Champagne, president of Quebec’s professional journalists association, says he was shaken by the revelations.
He recalled the attempted assassination of journalist Michel Auger, who was shot multiple times in the back in the parking lot of the Journal de Montréal in 2000—which put enormous pressure on organized crime….