Montreal court orders 66-month term for Jewish school shooter

Abdirazak Mahdi Ahmed, 23, received a 66-month prison sentence on Monday from a Quebec court for his role in a November 2023 shooting at a Jewish school in Montreal. The term includes credit for time Ahmed already spent in custody. Judge Pierre Labelle accepted the joint recommendation from prosecutors and the defense, which followed Ahmed's guilty plea in September.

The attack occurred on November 12, 2023, shortly before 5 a.m. on Deacon Road in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood. Ahmed arrived with an accomplice in a stolen Acura and fired a 9 mm handgun toward the entrance door of Yeshiva Gedola. He climbed into the passenger seat of the moving vehicle, and the pair drove away. The incident took place roughly one month after the October 7, 2023, massacre.

Officers responding to the scene found bullet holes in the entrance door and spent cartridge casings on the ground. No one was inside the building when the shots were fired, and no injuries were reported. Police recovered the abandoned vehicle several hours later. Inside, they found ammunition, a ski mask, a surgical mask, and latex gloves.

Investigators linked Ahmed to the crime through DNA found on items from the vehicle and cellphone location records that placed him near the school. He also made statements to an undercover officer during his detention. Police arrested Ahmed in Montreal's LaSalle borough on May 22, 2024, about six months after the shooting. He remained in custody until his release from pretrial detention following his plea.

At the plea hearing, investigators stated they could not establish an antisemitic motive for the specific shooting. Prosecutors noted that no evidence connected Ahmed to two other shootings on November 9, 2023, at Yeshiva Gedola and Azrieli Talmud Torah. Those two cases remain unsolved.

In the sentencing remarks, Judge Labelle described an attacker who targets a school as a "coward." The judge condemned attacks on educational institutions during the hearing.

Joseph Pageau-Layto, 21, of Vaudreuil, was arrested in February 2025 as the alleged getaway driver. The direct charge related to the shooting was dropped, but prosecutor Jean-Christophe Ardanos confirmed that charges concerning the stolen vehicle remain. Court records show Pageau-Layto intends to plead guilty to that remaining charge at a later date.