A Pakistani man who allegedly planned a mass shooting at a New York Jewish centre while living in the Greater Toronto Area will face trial in the spring.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan appeared at the U.S. District court in Manhattan, N.Y., on Tuesday. Public records show his trial by jury has been scheduled to begin May 26, 2026. If convicted, he faces life in prison.
Khan, 21, was arrested by heavily armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers near a gas station in Ormstown, Que., last year, after authorities said he paid a human smuggler to help him cross the U.S. border.
Khan faces two terrorism-related charges over an alleged ISIS-inspired plot to open fire at an unnamed Jewish centre in Brooklyn, which was set to be carried out around the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
He pleaded not guilty earlier this year, after being extradited to the U.S.
Immigration records released by a Canadian parliamentary committee show Khan had been granted a study permit in April 2023 and landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport the following June.
The federal immigration department’s security assessment had not identified “any risk indicators,” so Khan’s file was not sent for further screening by intelligence service CSIS or the Canada Border Services Agency.
“We will prosecute this man to the fullest extent of the law,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in June.
CBC News previously reported how Khan’s social media activity – under the alias “Shahzeb Jadoon” – first caught the eye of an FBI informant in October 2023, just four months after he moved to the Toronto area.
“If we succeed with our plan,” Khan purportedly wrote on an encrypted chat platform, “this would be the largest attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.”
According to evidence filed in Quebec Superior Court as part of the extradition process, Khan had asked would-be accomplices to acquire hunting knives, camouflage shirts, tactical vests, AR-style rifles and “900 rounds of ammunition and 10 magazines each.”
Around the same time, a self-styled immigration consultant in Mississauga, Ont., said Khan had been in the process of claiming refugee status in Canada, on the basis of his sexual orientation.
“He said he was gay,” Fazal Qadeer told CBC News in an interview last year.
Khan told the Quebec court in February that had agreed to be extradited to stand trial in New York.
“Brothers … we are going to nyc to slaughter them,” Khan allegedly wrote.
