Canadian security authorities thwarted an alleged Iranian assassination attempt on Jewish jurist and human rights advocate Irwin Cotler last month, reported Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
Citing an anonymous source, the newspaper reported on Monday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police warned Cotler on Oct. 26 that he was under “imminent threat of assassination within 48 hours from Iranian agents.”
The source said RCMP had been tracking two suspects in relation to the plot. The source could not say if they had been detained or had left the country, though Cotler was apparently informed last week that the threat has substantially decreased.
Cotler, 84, who served as Canada’s justice minister and attorney general from 2003 to 2006, sits on the board of the nongovernmental organization Advancing Human Rights and is a fierce advocate for Jewish issues and a strong supporter of Israel.
Cotler is also on the advisory board of United Against Nuclear Iran, a quietly influential nonprofit advocacy organization that “designs programs to ensure the [Iranian] regime’s economic and diplomatic isolation until it abandons its pursuit of nuclear weapons, support for terrorism, regional destabilization, and human rights violations.”
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