MONTREAL — An extradition hearing has been scheduled for February for a Pakistani national arrested in Quebec for allegedly plotting to kill Jews in New York City on behalf of the Islamic State.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, who has been jailed since his arrest on Sept. 4 in Ormstown, Que., is being sought by authorities in the United States to stand trial. U.S. officials have charged Khan with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a terrorist organization, and Canada has agreed to have him extradited.
Khan appeared for a brief hearing Friday in a Montreal courtroom, where lawyers set the date for his next hearing for Feb. 20. He wore black pants and a black puffy winter jacket, with his hands handcuffed in front of him. He was not asked to speak, but he consulted briefly with his lawyer.
U.S. and Canadian authorities allege Khan was on his way to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish centre in Brooklyn around Oct. 7 to mark the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.
Before his arrest, Khan was living in Mississauga, Ont., according to court documents, and federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller has said the accused arrived in Canada in June 2023 on a student visa granted in May of that year.
According to documents filed by the U.S. prosecutor summarizing the case against Khan, the FBI became aware of the accused after a paid informant observed his pro-Islamic State musings on Facebook in October 2023. On Oct. 8 of that year, a post from a "Shahzeb Jadoon" quoted a Saudi jihad proponent, and later that month the same user posted a photo of a disassembled weapon and called for unity among Muslims.
Following a post in November 2023, the informant started chatting with Jadoon, who said he was a Pakistani national living in Canada. They moved their online conversations to an encrypted platform — unnamed in the U.S. court documents — after Khan expressed concerns about being identified by the FBI. He allegedly sent the informant a number of Islamic State videos and a PDF ebook with a detailed history of the terror group.
"This book is soo beneficial," Khan allegedly wrote. "Reading the book is giving me (an) adrenalin rush."
Khan was unaware that his discussions with the informant on the encrypted network were being documented and under the direction of the FBI.
Authorities later identified the person in control of the account as Khan and, on March 21, 2024, provided the RCMP with Ontario IP addresses, social media accounts and a Pakistani phone number, all allegedly tied to the accused. In August, the RCMP told U.S. authorities they had identified Khan and opened a criminal investigation into him.
U.S. officials found that Khan had been participating in a pro-Islamic State group chat that discussed how to carry out co-ordinated attacks in the United States, Pakistan and India, among other areas. Two undercover officers were part of that chat, posing as fellow travellers.
In July 2024, Khan allegedly started to discuss creating "a real off-line cell" of Islamic State supporters and told an undercover agent he "had already begun plans to carry out an attack" against "Zionist Jews." Over the following days, he began to elaborate his plan to carry out a mass shooting using AR-style rifles.
After the RCMP disrupted a father and son's alleged Islamic State-inspired murder plot in Toronto, Khan allegedly told chat group members they needed to "lay low, no social media" and that the cell "should be small and well-armed." Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and his son, Mostafa Eldidi, 26, were arrested in Richmond Hill, Ont., on July 28, 2024, and face nine terrorism charges, including conspiracy to commit murder on behalf of the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
But after the two arrests, Khan continued with his plan, and was recorded encouraging people in the chat group to procure AR-style rifles, ammunition, magazines, holsters, boots and other materials needed for "kits." By mid-August, Khan told the agent that he was readying to vacate his apartment and begin his journey to the U.S., having organized travel with a human smuggler. On Aug. 21 he decided that New York City, with its large Jewish population, would be his target.
"Brothers … we are going to NYC to slaughter them," Khan allegedly wrote.
Khan got in a vehicle in Toronto at about 5:40 a.m. on Sept. 4 and switched cars in Napanee, Ont., and again in Montreal before he was arrested at about 2:45 p.m. in Ormstown.
Khan's lawyer in Canada, Gaétan Bourassa, has said the case against his client amounts to entrapment.
On Friday Bourassa said Khan was aware of the evidence against him. Extraditions are challenging to fight, he added, because the other side has to prove only that the accused has been correctly identified and that there's enough evidence to bring the case to trial.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 17, 2025.
Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
