GANGLAND GODFATHER

Serge Dupras testified in Prince Albert at the first-degree murder trial of Cluney, 33.Simard was a contract killer for the Hells Angels who later testified against the motorcycle gang. He died July 18, 2003, after being stabbed 187 times at Saskatchewan Penitentiary. When police were investigating, Dupras told them Cluney was rising in the ranks of the Hells Angels because he helped kill Simard for the gang. But on Thursday, he recanted that story, saying he made it up to get out of segregation. Dupras, 53, is serving a 24-year sentence for manslaughter.Security was tight as Dupras testified. He was brought to court on a bus filled with armed guards. Officers carrying semi-automatic rifles were stationed in the courtroom and everyone entering the courthouse was searched.Crown prosecutor Robin Ritter won permission from the court to treat Dupras as a hostile witness. Ritter asked Dupras how he could turn a blind eye as a man was being stabbed to death just down the hall. In prison, you...

Aime Simard bled to death from wounds sustained in an attack in his penitentiary cell, a pathologist told a first-degree murder trial Thursday. Simard died from “massive bleeding which led to hemorrhagic shock,” Dr. Roman Michalski told Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Ronald Mills in response to the question from Crown attorney Robin Ritter. “Probably there was no instant death,” said Michalski. Simard, a member of a gang affiliated with the Hells Angels who became a police informant, was stabbed 187 times on July 18, 2003. Christopher Robert Cluney, 33, is being tried for first-degree murder. Cluney’s co-accused, Alvin Vern Starblanket, pleaded guilty on Monday to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life without parole for 13 years. Earlier Thursday, RCMP Staff Sergeant Jacques Lemieux had told the court it is not easy to become a member of the Hells Angels while in prison. “You don’t just wake up one morning and decide, ‘I’m going to become a Hells Angel. You have to be known by...