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U.S. prosecutors have taken steps to protect “classified” national security material they say will be part of their case against a former Toronto-area resident accused of plotting a shooting rampage targeting Jews in New York in 2024.
The development underlines the stakes at play as the jury trial of alleged ISIS supporter Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, scheduled to begin May 26, draws closer.
RCMP arrested the now 21-year-old Pakistani citizen roughly 20 kilometres from the U.S. border, in Ormstown, Que., on Sept. 4, 2024. U.S. authorities said an FBI investigation had uncovered Khan’s purported efforts to recruit co-conspirators and amass an arsenal, including AR-style rifles and hunting knives, before planning to attack a Jewish centre in Brooklyn.
Khan, who was living in Mississauga, Ont., on a Canadian study permit, has pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges.
A new filing signed by a judge in a New York federal court this week places strict guidelines on who can access specific evidence, given the “case will involve information that has been classified in the interest of national security.”
The material, which may include notes or audio and video recordings derived from classified information, can only be accessed by people with “appropriate security clearances and have been determined to have a need to know that information,” in specially designed secure areas, according to the filings.
Prosecutors on the case and Khan’s attorney Andrew Dalack have all obtained the security clearances required to consult the evidence.
Javed Ali, a former FBI intelligence officer who now teaches at the University of Michigan, told CBC News “in FBI counterterrorism cases, there is usually some level of classified intelligence that helps build the picture on a suspect while they’re under investigation.”
CBC previously reported that Khan’s online activity caught the attention of an unnamed FBI informant who later reached out to him on Facebook, according to court documents.
A separate U.S. court filing says Khan’s defence team recently asked that his statements to Canadian police following his arrest not be presented as evidence to the jury. U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said the prosecution didn’t intend to introduce the statements at trial.
Court documents do not specify what Khan told the Mounties while he was first held at a Sûreté du Québec station in Ormstown, then at an RCMP detachment near Montreal.
Khan’s plot was meant to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, U.S. authorities said following his arrest.
“We are going to nyc to slaughter them,” he told undercover officers, according to a summary of evidence filed in a Quebec court as part of extradition proceedings. “If we succeed with our plan this would be the largest Attack on US soil since 9/11.”
Khan, who also went by the alias Shahzeb Jadoon, was extradited to the U.S. last June.
Public records from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons show he’s being held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, a notorious jail that has housed inmates ranging from disgraced music mogul Sean Combs and accused killer Luigi Mangione to deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
