TORONTO (JTA) — A Canadian couple convicted of plotting to bomb the British Columbia legislature wanted to infiltrate a synagogue and kill “small Jews” to save the children from going to hell, according to court documents.
Police notes presented in British Columbia’s Supreme Court in Vancouver this week recounted Amanda Korody’s husband, John Nuttall, telling an undercover officer that his wife thought she would be doing Jewish children a favor by sending them to paradise, since she believed “grown-up Jews” go to “eternal hell” when they die, the Victoria Times-Colonist reported Tuesday.
Earlier this year, Nuttall and Korody were found guilty of plotting to detonate homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the British Columbia legislature during crowded Canada Day celebrations two years ago. The couple, self-described Muslim converts, are back in court trying to have the verdict vacated due to police misconduct.
“I asked Nuttall how he thinks he will have access to Jewish kids and he said [he and his wife] were both white and could pass for Jewish,” read the note from an undercover officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, dated March 2013.
“They will be regulars in the synagogue. They will gain the trust of everybody. And once they have everything they will get enough guns and ammo to go ahead with their mission.”
Nuttall conceded that Jewish children were noncombatants but believed they would be raised to hate Arabs and Muslims, wrote the undercover officer. However, Nuttall eventually said that “you never know, they may convert [to Islam] in their adulthood.”
Lawyers for Korody and Nuttall are arguing that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police entrapped the pair through an elaborate, months-long undercover sting operation.
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