Former army reservist gets house arrest for online shotgun threat against Richmond MP

A British Columbia judge has given a former Canadian Army reservist a conditional sentence for posting a video online threatening the life of Richmond member of Parliament Wilson Miao.

B.C. provincial court judge Diana Vandor issued the ruling on Wednesday, handing 30-year-old Peter Liu 60 days of house arrest and 16 months probation after he posted a video online of himself firing a bullet into a picture of the Liberal MP.

The ruling says Liu accused Miao in the video of “being a communist agent for China,” and used “phrases that are often uttered by Islamic extremists just before committing acts of terrorism.”

The judgment says the video shows Liu in a mask and camouflage pants holding up a “political pamphlet” featuring Miao, and saying he will “get what is coming to him,” before putting it on the ground, pumping a shotgun and shooting the pamphlet.

It says friends of Liu’s contacted police “immediately,” and the RCMP’s national security unit began investigating the China-born Canadian citizen, who was also a reservist in the Canadian Armed Forces for five years.

The judge says in the ruling that Liu was co-operative with investigators, remorseful, that he pleaded guilty to uttering threats, and is not considered “a danger to the community.”

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