The man who said he firebombed a synagogue in Dollard-des-Ormeaux after a $15,000 offer from a man he didn’t know was sentenced Thursday to a two-year prison term to be followed by three years of probation.
During a hearing at the Montreal courthouse, Quebec Court Judge Karine Giguère said the crimes Mohamed Ilyess Akodad, 20, committed on Dec. 18, 2024, were “insidious because they don’t only impact on the immediate targets, but they also transmit a message of fear to the whole community.”
With the time Akodad has already served while detained factored in, he has 127 days left to serve as of Thursday.
In January, Akodad pleaded guilty to charges related to setting fire to Congregation Beth Tikvah, a synagogue on Westpark Blvd. in D.D.O. He also broke the windows of a nearby Jewish community centre on Roger-Pilon St. belonging to the Federation CJA.
The judge agreed with the Crown’s request to sentence Akodad to the two-year prison term and rejected the suggestion from his lawyer Nazar Saaty that he be able to serve a sentence in the community.
The judge said that “a sentence to be served in the community is not appropriate in these circumstances.”
The judge also ordered that Akodad carry out 100 hours of community service during his probation.
Akodad testified when sentencing arguments were made this summer. He said that in the hours before he set the fire, he consumed a lot of drugs while hanging out with a friend in Parc-Extension. They continued to party with other people at a “chill spot,” a short-term rental condo in downtown Montreal.
“At a certain point (while at the condo) he overheard people who were searching for someone for a mission,” the judge said, summarizing the evidence. “He later learned it was for a ‘barbecue,’ jargon for setting a building on fire.”
Akodad said the people involved in the conversation handed him a phone and he spoke with a stranger on video. He said the man offered him $15,000 to set fire to two buildings as well as a vehicle.
According to Akodad, the man offered to provide the materials he would need as well as a driver to take him to the three locations.
Shortly after the conversation ended, Akodad said, he found himself being driven by another stranger. At the first address, the community centre, he broke windows, but he felt they were not damaged enough to allow him to set a fire inside the building.
Akodad said he returned to the vehicle and lied to the person who had ordered the fire. He told the man he was spooked by a passerby and gave up.
Akodad was then driven around for roughly 10 minutes before stopping at the synagogue, located very close to the community centre. Akodad said he thought the driver used this unnecessarily long route to avoid detection.
At the synagogue, Akodad used a hammer to break windows. This allowed him to pour an accelerant into the interior of the place of worship and onto the exterior of a door.
He then set fire to a piece of brown paper and tossed it into the synagogue.
“The fire exploded to a point where he was injured,” the judge said. “At each of the addresses, he estimates he was there for two or three minutes. He mentioned that because of the stress, the darkness and the pressure to act quickly, he did not take the time to look at what the buildings were. He says the buildings resembled businesses. Based on watching media reports, he assumed that ‘barbecues’ were generally for businesses being extorted. He figured this was the case for him as well. After the events, he learned in the media that one of the buildings was a place of worship for the Jewish community.”
When Akodad testified, he claimed he was only paid $3,000.
In all, he caused more than $7,000 in damage to the buildings.
“These events placed a heavy emotional burden on the Jewish community and an immense amount of distress. Several members began to ask whether they should continue to openly display their Jewish identity if it will only make them targets,” the judge said. “These fears aren’t theoretical.”
In a release, B’nai Brith Canada said it commended the judge “for holding an arsonist who targeted Jewish institutions in Montreal accountable.”
“A sentence that includes incarceration sends a clear message that targeting houses of worship or Jewish communal infrastructure will not be tolerated in our society,” said Henry Topas, who served as B’nai Brith Canada’s Regional Director for Quebec and Atlantic Canada at the time the offences occurred, while also working as Congregation Beth Tikvah’s cantor. “It is crucial that Canadians have faith in our justice system that perpetrators of these crimes will be held accountable to the full extent of the law.”
“Akodad caused a great deal of harm to the Jewish community of Montreal and now he is paying the price for his actions,” Paola Samuel, Regional Director, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, wrote in the same release. “We are relieved that he will be in prison serving the remainder of a 24-month sentence and hope that this acts as a clear warning to those who target vulnerable communities.”