The RCMP has thwarted an Iranian plot to assassinate the former attorney general of Canada and minister of justice, Irwin Cotler.
A source within the RCMP told the Globe and Mail that authorities knew of two suspects in the plot, however, it remains unknown if they were arrested or fled the country.
The source requested anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss national security matters.
Cotler is an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and a prominent human rights advocate.
The RCMP warned Cotler on Oct. 26. of an imminent assassination plot to be carried out within 48 hours. Cotler has since been notified that his threat status has been significantly lowered.
He has been under constant RCMP protection since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
According to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Cotler has been a high-profile target of Iran since 2008, after he launched a global campaign to have the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps listed as a terrorist entity.
Ottawa ultimately did list the IRGC as a terrorist organization in June, along with the United States, while diplomatic ties with the country were severed over a decade ago.
Additionally, Cotler has represented Iranian political prisoners and is a vocal supporter of Israel. He served as Canada’s first special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism from 2020 to 2023.
“Today’s revelation of an Iranian government plot to assassinate the Hon. Irwin Cotler here in Canada is a distressing and stark reminder of the urgent challenges we face as a country in combating hate, extremism, and foreign interference,” Canadian Jewish Advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada told True North in a statement.
“This isn’t merely an attack on one individual—it’s an assault on Canada’s democratic values and sovereignty and represents a threat to the safety of all its citizens.”
His strong stance against the IRGC has forced him to routinely travel in bulletproof vehicles and be permanently accompanied by heavily armed officers in addition to other security measures.
According to the source, Cotler was also named in a recent Federal Bureau of Investigation probe involving an Iranian murder-for-hire operation resulting in a foiled assassination attempt on a Sikh separatist living in New York.
That investigation was ultimately linked to the June 2023 killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. and the suspected involvement of the Indian government.
Cotler is a renowned international human rights lawyer who called out the Iranian government for accidentally shooting down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in 2020, killing all 176 on board, including 55 Canadians and 30 permanent residents.
He has also criticized the IRGC’s funding of Hamas, a group that has been a designated terrorist entity in Canada since 2002.
He founded the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in 2015, a Montreal-based organization dedicated to championing human rights, advocating on behalf of political prisoners
Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat responsible for saving around 100,000 Jews during the Second World War by granting them diplomatic passports and providing safe houses.
According to Cotler, authoritarian regimes have been waging a war against Western nations such as the United States, Canada, Australia and as well as many in Europe “through three primary methods – electoral interference, transnational repression, and the spreading of harmful disinformation.”
