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Canadian security forces last month foiled an Iranian assassination plot against Irwin Cotler, the Jewish former politician and human rights advocate, the country’s The Globe and Mail reported on Monday.
A source told the daily that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police warned the former Liberal justice minister on Oct. 26 that he was the target of an “imminent threat of assassination within 48 hours from Iranian agents.”
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The source said authorities had knowledge of two suspects in the plot, but it is unknown whether they were arrested or fled the country. The RCMP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The source claimed to The Globe and Mail that Cotler was informed last week that the threat level against him had been significantly lowered.
Cotler, 84, has reportedly been under 24/7 RCMP protection since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led cross-border massacre in Israel’s northwestern Negev. Canadian Security Intelligence Service told him that he was a high-profile target of Tehran, a long-time sponsor of the terror group.
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The protection provided to Cotler by Canadian authorities was said to include bulletproof vehicles, armed bodyguards and other measures.
“After Oct. 7, my wife and I attended the March for Israel in Washington, D.C. When we flew back to Montreal, security asked us not to leave the airport. Security personnel spoke to me and informed me of what has been characterized as imminent and lethal threats, without going into further details,” Cotler said in an interview with JNS earlier this year.
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The international legal scholar noted at the time that “the community of democracies including Canada does not understand the threat of Iran.”
Cotler, who served as Canada’s minister of justice and attorney general between 2003 and 2006, has been on the Islamic Republic’s radar for his calls to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity.
The Jewish jurist has also represented Iranian political prisoners and is a strong supporter of Israel. He was Canada’s special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism from 2020 to 2023.
Cotler currently serves as the international chair of the Canada-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, which he founded in 2015.
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