Convicted murderer challenges B.C. prison's policy on Mein Kampf, other controversial books
A convicted murderer who kept his victim's severed head in a bucket claims prison authorities in British Columbia are wrongfully withholding books he has acquired during his life sentence, including Hitler's 'Mein Kampf.'
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Mihaly Illes was convicted of first-degree murder in 2011 for the death of Javan Dowling, a drug-trade associate who was shot four times in the back of the head in April 2001 before his body was dismembered and disposed of in Squamish, B.C.
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Illes filed an application in the Federal Court of Canada in March after exhausting prisoner grievance procedures, claiming authorities at Kent Institution in Agassiz, B.C., wrongfully withheld 19 non-fiction books when he was transferred there in 2022.
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Documents filed in court show the books include Machiavelli's 'The Prince on the Art of Power,' Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War,' Adolf Hitler's autobiography 'Mein Kampf,' 'The 48 Laws of Power,' 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,' 'The CIA as Organized Crime,' 'The Lie that Wouldn't Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' as well as biographies of Alexander the Great, Hitler and Napoleon.
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Prison authorities put the books in storage and deemed them 'unauthorized materials' covered by a Correctional Service of Canada Commissioner's directive outlining offenders' access to 'expressive materials.'
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Inmates are generally allowed access to books and other materials, but limitations include 'material that supports genocide, promotes a theory of racial superiority or incites hatred toward any identifiable group or subpopulation,' the directive states.
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