Quebec court sentences man to 66 months over Montreal Jewish school shooting
Abdirazak Mahdi Ahmed received a sentence that includes credit for time served after pleading guilty to discharging a firearm at Yeshiva Gedola in November 2023.
By Hiroshi Ferrari ·
A Quebec court on Monday sentenced Abdirazak Mahdi Ahmed, 23, to 66 months in prison for his role in a November 2023 shooting at a Jewish school in Montreal. The sentence, which includes credit for time already spent in custody, followed the joint recommendation of prosecutors and the defense after Ahmed pleaded guilty in September.
The attack targeted the entrance of Yeshiva Gedola in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood nearly three years before the sentencing and approximately a month after the October 7, 2023, massacre. Quebec Court Judge Pierre Labelle condemned attacks on schools during the sentencing hearing, describing someone who carries out such an attack as a "coward."
The shooting took place on Deacon Road shortly before 5 a.m. on November 12, 2023. According to the Montreal Gazette, Ahmed arrived with an accomplice in a stolen vehicle and fired a 9 mm handgun toward a door of the school. He then climbed into the passenger seat while the vehicle was moving, and the pair escaped.
Officers who responded found bullet holes in the entrance door and spent cartridge casings on the ground. Nobody was inside the building when the shots were fired, and no injuries were reported. Canadian media reported that the Acura used to leave the scene had been stolen the day before the attack.
Police found the abandoned vehicle several hours after the shooting. Inside, they recovered ammunition, a ski mask, a surgical mask and latex gloves. Investigators linked Ahmed to the attack through DNA found on items recovered from the vehicle and cellphone location records placing him near the school. His statements to an undercover officer assigned to his detention cell also helped establish the connection.
Ahmed was arrested in Montreal's LaSalle borough on May 22, 2024, about six months after the shooting, and has remained in custody since then. In September 2026, he admitted guilt to a single count of discharging a firearm.
At the guilty plea hearing, investigators said they could not establish an antisemitic motive for the shooting. Prosecutors also said no evidence connected Ahmed to shootings on November 9, 2023, at Yeshiva Gedola and another Jewish school, Azrieli Talmud Torah. Those two cases remain unsolved.
The Montreal Gazette reported that police arrested the alleged getaway driver, Joseph Pageau-Layto, 21, of Vaudreuil, in February 2025. The charge directly related to the shooting was later dropped, but prosecutor Jean-Christophe Ardanos said charges concerning the stolen vehicle remained. Court records indicate that Pageau-Layto intends to plead guilty to the remaining charge at a later date.
