A man who threatened to bomb all of Toronto’s synagogues and “kill as many Jews as possible” has been convicted of two criminal offences, Global News has learned.
On March 4, 2024, Waisuddin Akbari, the owner of a shawarma shop north of Toronto, told a witness he was planning a suicide mission, according to court documents.
“I’m going to plant a bomb in every synagogue in Toronto and blow them up to kill as many Jews as possible,” Akbari told the witness at a car dealership north of Toronto.
“I’ll make sure those attacks are filmed and posted online so the world can see what I’ve done,” the 42-year-old added, according to the court materials on the case.
Believing Palestinians were victims of a “genocide,” he felt “the Israeli state and the Jewish people should also be subjected to a genocide in retaliation,” the records show.
York Regional Police arrested Akbari after the witness reported his comments. He was convicted on Nov. 1 of threatening death and property damage, but the case has received no public attention until now.
Reached by Global News, Akbari called the witness a liar and said he had only spoken about closing “stupid casinos.” He denied even knowing what a synagogue was.
“It’s a prayer place, I guess, something like that,” he said.
An 'outrageous' hate crime
A Jewish advocacy organization said it would be giving a victim impact statement at Akbari’s sentencing at the Newmarket, Ont. courthouse on May 8.
But Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, policy director of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, took issue with the decision by authorities to charge Akbari only with uttering threats.
“The idea that a person is threatening to commit mass murder, that they are threatening to blow up buildings across the city, and that they are charged with simply uttering a threat, it’s outrageous,” she said.
“And whatever sentence he ends up with is going to be outrageous compared to the crime,” she said. “Our justice system is failing every day and across the board to hold hate criminals and would-be terrorists accountable.”
Const. James Dickson, a York region police spokesperson, said the case was reviewed by the Hate Crime Prevention Unit, which found that hate was a motivating factor.
“In cases where there is a criminal charge and it is determined that the incident is a hate crime, the aggravating factors are generally presented in court at sentencing,” he said.
A leading expert on hate crimes law, Mark Sandler, said that was an “acceptable” way to handle the incident because Akbari’s comments were made in a private conversation.
As such, he could not be charged with willfully promoting hatred, but the hate motivation can be an aggravating factor at sentencing, said Sandler, chair of the Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism.
The antisemitic oil change
Akbari was born in Afghanistan but left Kabul by age 8 for Pakistan. He then moved to Moscow and arrived in Canada in November 2007 and is a citizen.
He opened a Middle Eastern restaurant franchise in Newmarket, Ont., and owns a $1 million house in nearby East Gwillimbury.
Just over a year ago, he took his car to the BMW dealership in Aurora for an oil change. While he waited, he asked about upgrading his car.
The salesperson he spoke to was 26 and had a Pakistani surname, which Akbar apparently interpreted as a sign they shared similar views about Israel and Palestinians.
After they sat at a cubicle, Akbari said he did not want to lease or finance a vehicle because he thought Jews controlled the global financial system, according to the court materials.
He believed any interest payments he made would therefore go to the Israeli government and be used to fund its war against Palestinians, the court record shows.
As the sales manager grew increasingly uncomfortable, Akbari went down what a judge later called an “antisemitic rabbit hole” of conspiracy theories.
“Mr. Akbari believed the Israeli government controlled the entire world and that they were trying to exterminate anyone who was not Jewish,” Justice Edward Prutschi said.
“He stated that Israel sought to turn the world into slaves and to poison the world. He expressed a belief that Israeli was not a real country,” said the judge.
“He went on the equate Israeli and Jewish people to roaches or insects who should be exterminated and to a cancer that needed to be eliminated.”
Shocked, the young sales manager tried to steer the conversation back to cars, but as they were wrapping up Akbari confided his intention to commit mass murder.
“Before I go, I want you to remember my name and remember my face because the next time you see it I’ll be on the news,” he said.
The manager said that he did not understand.
“I know when I’m going to die because I’m going to plant a bomb in every synagogue in Toronto and blow them up to kill as many Jews as possible,” Akbari said.
“Really?” the manager asked.
“Yes, I’m serious,” Akbari responded. “I’ll make sure those attacks are filmed and posted online so the world can see what I’ve done.”
They shook hands and Akbari left. But the conversation weighed on the salesperson. He didn’t feel it was a joke. He spoke to friends who told him to report it to the police.
The next day, he phoned the RCMP and the York Regional Police, which opened an investigation and charged Akbari.
The trial
During the trial at the Newmarket courthouse, Akbari acknowledged telling the BMW employee he would not lease or finance because of he thought the interest went to the Israeli military.
But he claimed he only said that to end the conversation because the salesperson was trying to pressure him into buying a car he couldn’t afford.
He said he had joked that he wanted to “blow up a casino” because of all the hardship gambling had caused him. He explained a gambling addiction had cost him $500,000.
He denied wanting to bomb synagogues or kill Jews. In fact, he said he did not know what Jews were and had never before heard the word synagogue.
The judge didn’t buy his testimony, describing it as “disjointed and vague,” and “inconsistent and evasive,” while the claim he brought up genocide to dodge a pushy car salesperson was “utterly bizarre.”
“The nonsensical nature of his claim was further underscored by Mr. Akbari himself who, by his own admission, had, only moments before this, sought out a salesperson to discuss the purchase of a new car,” the judge said.
“Having just asked to speak with a sales associate, I cannot accept that his opening salvo in that conversation was really just a ruse designed to extricate himself from that pushy salesman.”
By contrast, the salesperson’s testimony was “direct, straightforward and detailed.” Nor did the judge believe he had simply misheard the comments or confused them with a joke about casinos.
“An off-color joke by a gambling addict about bombing a casino cannot reasonably be misheard as a detailed threat to place bombs at every synagogue in Toronto for the express purpose of killing as many Jews as possible while filming and posting the entire affair to show the world what had been accomplished,” according to the judge’s ruling.
English was not Akbari’s first language but he had lived in Canada for close to two decades, ran a business where he had to deal with customers and did not require an interpreter at trial, the judge noted.
In his ruling, the judge said that had Akbari only voiced his “false, despicable and odious” antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews, he would not have been arrested.
But he had crossed the line when he made threats.
“These threats targeted Toronto synagogues and any Jews who might be inside them. The threats were delivered in a serious tone, and it does not matter whether Mr. Akbari intended to act on them or not,” the judge ruled.
“They clearly meet the legal definition of an unlawful threat to damage personal property and harm an ascertained group. For these reasons, I find Mr. Akbari guilty of both counts.”
'God's decision'
Akbari’s home went up for sale last week. Global News reached him through his restaurant. He said he was an Ismaili Muslim and therefore would never commit the crimes for which he was convicted.
(The court ruling quotes Akbari as saying he is Ismaili but “not religiously observant in any way.”)
He maintained the salesperson lied because he wanted a bonus for selling a car and Akbari wasn’t interested in buying. (There is such evidence in the court records.)
Asked about his upcoming sentencing, he was fatalistic.
“Whatever God’s decision for me,” he said. “But to be honest I wish there was a way like I could prove myself that this is all fake accusations.”
Kirzner-Roberts said she would be telling the court that, “Mr. Akbari and those like him have been, for too long, terrorizing the Jewish community into being afraid to be publicly Jewish or to engage in public activities because they think they’re going to be targeted.”
Those concerns have reached new heights amid expressions of support for Hamas and Hezbollah in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the military response in Gaza.
Last week, Toronto police announced the arrest of a suspect accused of committing a spree of attacks on the city’s synagogues. He was also charged with inciting genocide in social media posts.
Before that, the RCMP stopped a Toronto man as he was allegedly on his way to carry out a mass shooting at a New York Jewish centre, and in December 2023, an alleged plot to bomb a pro-Israel rally on Parliament Hill was disrupted.
“I think the real fear that the community has is, how many times are police going to step in at the last moment and foil plans for a mass casualty attack against the Jewish community or against the Canadian public?” Kirzner-Roberts said.
“Our concern is that there’s only a certain amount of plans that can be foiled before one is successful.”
Comments