Man charged with plotting attack on NYC Jewish center was in Canada on student visa

NANAIMO, British Columbia — A Pakistani man arrested last week in Quebec and accused of plotting to attack a Jewish center in Brooklyn came to Canada on a student visa, Canada’s Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday.

Miller said Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, was granted a student visa in May 2023 and arrived in Toronto in June of that year. Miller said he wouldn’t provide any more details since the case is before the courts.

Authorities in the US allege Khan planned to use guns and knives to carry out a mass shooting in support of the Islamic State jihadist group on the one-year anniversary of the devastating October 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the ongoing conflict in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Conservative opposition party in Canada have been demanding the government answer questions about how Khan was allowed into the country.

“We take any security breach and any entry into Canada very seriously,” Miller said. “Let’s not be naïve. A determined individual can gain access to this country and that is for the security services inside our country to apprehend this person if they commit a crime or if they’re about to commit a crime.”

Miller added that Canada’s police forces “did their jobs” by arresting the individual and that “we’ll let the court case take its course.”

Earlier this year a man and his son were arrested for allegedly plotting to carry out a terror attack in Toronto.

The father, Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, has Canadian citizenship but the son, Mostafa Eldidi, does not.

The father is also accused of committing an aggravated assault in 2015 for the benefit of Islamic State somewhere outside of Canada.