Canada foiled Iran plot to assassinate former justice minister: report

OTTAWA: Canadian authorities reportedly foiled an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate a former justice minister and rights activist who has been a strong critic of Tehran, The Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Monday.

Irwin Cotler, 84, was justice minister and attorney general from 2003 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2015. According to the Globe and Mail, he was informed on October 26 that he faced an imminent threat of assassination from Iranian agents.

Authorities tracked two suspects in the plot, the paper said, citing unnamed sources. Cotler´s 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.

Canadian officials did not immediately comment on the report. Cotler had already been receiving police protection over the past year, over security concerns linked to his global advocacy to have Iran´s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps listed as a terrorist entity.

Ottawa, which severed diplomatic ties with Iran more than a decade ago, listed the Revolutionary Guard as a banned terror group in June. As a lawyer, Cotler also represented Iranian political prisoners and dissidents. He is also international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and a strong backer of Israel. His daughter, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, is an Israeli politician and diplomat who previously served as a member of Israel´s parliament.