JFeed reports:
A Montreal court sentenced a 23-year-old man to five and a half years in prison on Monday after he pleaded guilty to firing at Yeshiva Gedola Merkaz HaTorah in November 2023. The attack took place at five in the morning, when the building was empty.Abderrazak Mahdi Ahmed arrived at the yeshiva with an accomplice in a stolen vehicle, fired at the front door, and fled. Investigators found three bullet holes and four shell casings at the scene. Judge Pierre Labelle did not mince words: "Anyone who attacks a school in this manner is, in the eyes of this court, a coward."The shooting occurred against the backdrop of a wave of attacks on Jewish institutions across Canada in the weeks following October 7. Yet the prosecution acknowledged it could not prove an antisemitic motive. "We did not have enough evidence to present beyond a reasonable doubt that this was a hate crime," the prosecutor said.
I don't want to second-guess the prosecution, and I'm no expert in Canadian hate crime laws, but what do we know here?
* Someone targeted a yeshiva, an accomplice driving him there, stopping, he exited the car, fired at least four times, and jumped back into the already moving vehicle driving away.
* While Montreal police do not release details about him, his name indicates he is a Muslim.
* The name "Abderrazak" indicates Somali origin.
* This happened during a wave of similar attacks on Montreal Jewish institutions in the weeks after October 7.
Is there any other explanation for this outside it being a hate crime?
I understand that the law requires a hate crime finding to be beyond a reasonable doubt. And there is no independent evidence of antisemitism from the shooter. But if no one can come up with another reason that makes any sense why a yeshiva would be targeted in this manner, how can there be any reasonable doubt about it?
The minimum sentence in Canada for this sort of firearm offense is 5 years. The judge did not go very much above it. One would think that at the very least, the circumstances would demand that the sentence would be higher given what we know.
The Jewish community is praising the sentence. I'm not sure I agree.