The last of three alleged protestors turned himself in to Napanee OPP on Friday, setting the stage for the next hearing surrounding a Belleville-area quarry that has been the dispute of a native land claim for at least three years.
One of the men charged, 45-year-old Shawn Brant of the Tyendinga Mohawk Territory, has previously been linked to CN blockades in 2007 on Mohawk land near Deseronto, Ont. that briefly shut down the national railway.
Brant also – to protest the arming of border guards – organized a blockade of the Skyway Bridge near Belleville in 2009, which has one side in Mohawk territory and the other in Prince Edward County.
He served a five-month jail sentence in 2009 for the Skyway blockade as well as a smaller blockade in 2008.
Court dates set for later this month
Brant, 38-year-old Charles Edward Kloestra (who turned himself in Friday) and Steven William Chartrand, 34, are all charged with mischief under $5,000 and breach of probation in relation to damaging unidentified private property in January.
The property was next to the Thurlow Aggregates Quarry, the subject of a native land claim that was occupied by Mohawk protestors from at least 2007 to 2008.
In 2009, while its entrance was being blocked, media reports said the federal government was planning to appraise the 900-hecatare property with the potential to buy it out and hand it back to the Mohawks.
Negotiations were said to be confidential.
Brant and Chartrand will appear in court on Feb. 23, while Kloestra, who is still being held, will make his appearance on Saturday.
