Pasig court issues arrest warrant against 8chan founder

A Pasig Regional Trial Court (RTC) has issued an arrest warrant against the founder of controversial online message board 8chan.

Pasig RTC Branch 158 Judge Romeo Tagra issued the warrant after finding probable cause to charge Fredrick Brennan over a cyber libel case filed by the current owner of the website, according to Carlo Mateo's report on Super Radyo dzBB on Thursday.

James Arthur "Jim" Watkins filed the cyber libel complaint against Brennan after the latter tweeted that Watkins was "going senile" and that the website's administrators were "terrible incompetent people."

Brennan has previously said that the case filed was "weak." Though a permanent Philippine resident according to his lawyer, he is currently in the United States.

Watkins is also based in the Philippines.

FLASH REPORT: Pasig Regional Trial Court Branch 158, naglabas ng warrant of arrest laban sa founder ng
kontrabersyal na website na 8chan na si Fredrick Brennan. | via Carlo Mateo pic.twitter.com/aantx0jXNJ

— DZBB Super Radyo (@dzbb) February 27, 2020

According to the report, the Pasig RTC has recommended P10,000 bail for Brennan's temporary freedom.

Brennan's lawyer, Alexander Acain, Jr., told GMA News Online he would recommend for his client to face the case in the Philippines and post bail. 

Brennan, who said the case was a "waste of time" for Filipinos, told GMA News Online his legal strategy is to appeal his indictment before the Department of Justice and move for a suspension of court proceedings in the meantime.

Acain said prosecutors resolved to charge Brennan on February 19 and that he filed a petition for review before Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra's office on February 26.

Brennan's petition for review argues he was "not motivated by malice when he posted the controversial tweets."

"Respondent was merely exercising his civic duty to inform the public about the people behind 8Chan and the dangers of operating a website that hosted hate speech and white nationalist creed because it has already claimed the lives of many innocent people in the United States and in New Zealand as well," the pleading states.

Watkins is also being investigated by authorities as 8chan is linked to mass shootings in El Paso in Texas, Poway in California, and Christchurch in New Zealand.

Brennan has said that he "sometimes" feel guilt that the board he created has become a hive of white supremacy, anonymous hate, and neo-Nazism, supposedly since he sold it to Watkins.

"If I could go back and not create 8chan at all, I probably would," he told Reuters in an interview last year. — BM, GMA News