DMONTON — An Edmonton website owner has pleaded guilty in the posting of an infamous video of Luka Magnotta dismembering a Chinese university student in Montreal.
The trial for Mark Marek, who founded bestgore.com, was to start today.
But Marek, who is 41, has pleaded guilty to publishing obscene material — a charge under the corrupting morals section in the Criminal Code.
He was arrested a year after the 2012 killing of Jun Lin.
Police alleged Magnotta sent Marek the video and that Marek posted it online knowing it depicted a real killing.
Magnotta was convicted in 2014 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The video, titled "1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick," shows a man in a dark hoodie stabbing an already dead Lin and eventually cutting the body into pieces.
Magnotta, who was a porn actor and escort, admitted to killing and dismembering Lin and to mailing the man's hands and feet to political offices in Ottawa and schools in Vancouver. Police in Montreal found Lin's torso in a suitcase.
Magnotta's lawyer argued in court that his client was not criminally responsible for his actions due to a mental disorder. A jury found him guilty after eight days of deliberations.
The gruesome 10-minute video was shown at Magnotta's trial.
An officer testified that it appeared on various sites under different titles and, while some sites removed it at the request of police, bestgore.com resisted.
In a previous email to The Canadian Press, Marek said he removed the video the same day police publicly identified Magnotta as a suspect.
He also said, in a post on his site, that he initially thought the video was a bad joke and he suggested that the site's users had helped identify Magnotta before the police did."I've dedicated my life to fight against Evil and Lies and I know that God and Truth are on my side," he wrote.
Marek, a native of Slovakia, declined an interview before the trial.
He was out on bail and acting as his own lawyer.
His website is still operating. It advertises itself as a reality news website for adults only. It opens with a content warning.
"Videos and images posted on Best Gore are bloody, gut wrenching, teeth grinding, offensive and upsetting. Just as the life itself," it says.
"Best Gore exposes the truth about the humans as a whole and the truth is not always nice."
Police have described the site as disturbingly violent and racist and said it has had as many as 10 million viewers.
TIMELINE OF TWO CASES: GRISLY MURDER AND A WEBSITE OWNER WHO POSTED THE VIDEO
Edmonton website owner Mark Marek is charged with posting a video showing Luka Magnotta dismembering Montreal university student Jun Lin in 2012. Marek's trial is to start Monday. Magnotta is serving a life sentence for murder. Here is a timeline of events:
2012
May 24: Lin is last seen entering Magnotta's apartment building on surveillance video.
May 25-26: Magnotta is seen coming and going from the apartment, emptying its contents.
May 26: Montana lawyer Roger Renville sees a bizarre Internet video depicting a man being stabbed and dismembered.
May 26: Magnotta flies from Montreal to Paris.
May 27: Renville alerts U.S. and Canadian police to the video but they dismiss it as fake.
May 29: Montreal police are called to an apartment building after a janitor finds a torso in a suitcase left in the trash. The same day, a foot is found in a package mailed to the Conservative party in Ottawa. A hand is found in a Canada Post warehouse in a package destined for the Liberal party. Lin is reported missing by friends.
May 30: Montreal police name Magnotta as a prime suspect and issue a warrant for his arrest. Interpol adds him to its wanted list.
May 31: Magnotta boards a bus from Paris to Berlin.
June 1: Montreal police identify the torso victim as Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese computer science student at Concordia University.
June 4: Berlin police act on a tip and arrest Magnotta in an Internet cafe.
June 5: Two schools in Vancouver receive packages containing Lin's other hand and foot.
June 11: Magnotta is transferred to a Berlin prison hospital, where a psychiatrist believes Magnotta is in a psychotic state.
June 18: Magnotta is extradited and arrives in Montreal on a Canadian military plane.
July 1: A tip leads police to a Montreal park, where they discover Lin's skull.
___
2013
July 17: Edmonton police charge Marek with publishing obscene material after he travels back to Canada from a trip overseas. They say they didn't previously have the evidence they needed to arrest him.
___
2014
Sept. 29: Magnotta's trial begins. A jury hears that he admits to the crime but argues that he was not criminally responsible due to a mental illness.
Dec. 23: On their eighth day of deliberations, jurors find Magnotta guilty of all five charges against him — first-degree murder, committing an indignity to a body, publishing obscene material, mailing obscene and indecent material and harassment of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament. He is sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
