RCMP have told former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler that a plot by Iranian agents to assassinate him has failed.
As first reported, gloves and mailan 84-year-old former Liberal MP, was told last month that an assassination plot had been discovered within 48 hours.
Kotler, a human rights defender and outspoken critic of the regime in Tehran, confirmed the Globe and Mail report and told Radio-Canada on Monday that he has been under police protection for more than a year.
Kotler said that protection is in place 24/7 and includes the use of armored vehicles, armed protection officers and other safety measures.
The Globe and Mail reported that the threat level Kotler faced had decreased. Kotler himself could not confirm that part of the report. It is unclear whether the suspect has been arrested or has fled the country.
Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied US claims that Iran was involved in an alleged plot to kill President Donald Trump.
The US government has announced that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards were involved in a murder-for-hire plot to kill President Trump. U.S. authorities indicted a man involved in the conspiracy before the U.S. election.
Investigators said they learned about the plot from Farhad Shakeri, an alleged Iranian government official. Authorities allege that Mr. Shakeri maintains a web of criminal associates who collaborate with Tehran for surveillance and murder plots.
US implicated two Canadians in previous murder plot
In January, the U.S. Department of Justice The indictment was unsealed. Two Canadians have claimed to have plotted an assassination in the United States on behalf of Iranian intelligence.
One Canadian suspect in the indictment is Damion Patrick John Ryan, an official member of the Hells Angels criminal organization who is accused of assembling a team of gunmen in late 2020 and early 2021. It has been specified.
Ryan is said to have been working with Adam Richard Pearson, another Canadian citizen who was living in Minnesota illegally at the time.
U.S. authorities say the men were hired by Iranian drug traffickers who are said to be acting under the direction of certain officials in Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
The men are accused of planning to shoot and kill a man and a woman in Maryland, one of whom was an Iranian defector.
According to the indictment, Pearson gathered people and promised to instruct them to shoot the victim in the head multiple times as a demonstration.
