Former Canadian minister Irwin Cotler says he was target of alleged Iran-backed assassination plot
Irwin Cotler was Canada's justice minister under the Paul Martin Liberal government from 2003 to 2006.
In short:
Irwin Cotler, one of Canada's former justice ministers, says he was the target of an alleged attempted assassination by Iranian agents.
Mr Cotler, 84, was informed of the plot on October 26, two days before he was set to be attacked.
What's next?
Canadian authorities have reportedly tracked two suspects but there is no confirmation as to their arrest or whether a threat to Mr Cotler's life lingers.
Canada has thwarted an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Irwin Cotler, a former justice minister who has been a strong critic of Tehran.
The report was first made in The Globe and Mail newspaper on Monday, local time, and later confirmed by Mr Cotler's organisation, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, in an email to Agence France-Presse.
It said the 84-year-old had been informed by police on October 26 that he faced an imminent threat of being killed by Iranian agents within 48 hours.
Authorities tracked two suspects in the plot, the paper said, citing an unnamed source.
In an interview with Radio-Canada later on Monday, Mr Cotler said he had been under security protection since the October 7, 2023 terror attack by militant group Hamas — backed by Iran — on southern Israel.
He said this involved round the clock surveillance and armed protection measures.
Mr Cotler could not say whether the suspects had been arrested or if the threat against him had subsided.
Long advocate for Israel, Iran's archenemy
Mr Cotler was Canada's justice minister and attorney-general from 2003 to 2006.
He retired from politics in 2015 but has remained active with many associations that campaign for human rights around the world.
The octogenarian is Jewish, a strong backer of Israel, and has advocated globally to have Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) listed as a terrorist entity.
His name reportedly also came up in an FBI probe of a 2022 Iranian murder-for-hire operation in New York that targeted American human-rights activist Masih Alinejad.
The Iranian regime led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been implicated in several attempted assassination on foreign soil over the decades.
As a lawyer, he has also represented Iranian political prisoners and dissidents. His daughter, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, is an Israeli politician and diplomat who previously served as a member of Israel's parliament.
Reports say Mr Cotler's involvement in the campaign that led to Canada and Iran severing diplomatic relations in 2012, and Ottawa listing the IRGC as a terrorist entity this year, drew the ire of Tehran.
A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc declined to comment on Mr Cotler's case.
"We cannot comment on, nor confirm specific RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) operations due to security reasons," he told AFP.
Canada's House of Commons passed a unanimous motion praising Mr Cotler's work in defence of human rights and "condemning the death threats against him orchestrated by agents of a foreign regime".
Second alleged Iranian plot to kill in North America this year
Tehran has been implicated in hundreds of assassination plots worldwide since the 1979 Iranian revolution, according to US Department of State figures.
Iran was most recently accused of trying to kill US president-elect Donald Trump during his campaign in July.
A 51-year-old man — at large in Iran — was charged over the plot, with the US Department of Justice alleging the IRGC sanctioned the hit.
In January, an Iranian national and two Canadians were accused of conspiring to murder American citizens on US soil between December 2020 and January 2021.
Last week the US government announced murder-for-hire and other charges in the case.
"There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat of the national security of the United States as the does Iran," US Attorney-General Merrick Garland said then.
The alleged hit on Mr Cotler also comes as Canada remains embroiled in a diplomatic spat with India over the June 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen affiliated with the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement.
Ottawa claims Indian government agents were behind the assassination. New Delhi denies any involvement.
Political violence, including targeted killings, is otherwise relatively rare in Canada.
The ABC has reached out to the Iranian embassy in Australia for comment.
AFP/ABC
By：ABC(责任编辑：admin)
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