Man jailed for mosque threats after synagogue attack

A man who made death threats to two mosques in the wake of the Manchester synagogue attack has been jailed for more than two years.

Gabriel Levy, 21, from Wakefield, made an anonymous phone call to the Al-Sunnah Mosque in Cheetham Hill on 4 October 2025, telling the person who answered: "I'm going to come to your mosque and kill you," according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

When Levy, who is Jewish, was arrested he told police he did it in response to the attack two days earlier, in which two men were killed.

A CPS spokesman said it later emerged he had called the Iqra Mosque in Manchester on the same day, telling a staff member: "I am going to kill you Muslim."

Concerning messages were also uncovered on his phone, which included Islamophobic and racist language, as well as hate speech, the spokesman said.

Levy pleaded guilty to making threats to kill and was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court to 28 months in prison.

Worshippers Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed when Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, drove into the gates of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue on 2 October.

Al-Shamie then began attacking with a knife, while wearing a fake suicide belt, before he was shot dead by police.

The attack took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews.

Cravitz, 66, died from multiple knife wounds inflicted by Al-Shamie, while Daulby, 53, was struck by a single gunshot wound to the chest fired by an armed police officer scrambled to the scene in Crumpsall.

Senior crown prosecutor Aamir Sajad said: "No one has the right to make other people feel like their life is at risk just for doing their job.

"Gabriel Levy gave no thought to who was at the other end of the phone when he recklessly called two mosques to make these terrifying threats.

"He claimed that he had no real intention of causing any harm – but this means nothing to those on the receiving end of these types of illegal and intimidating communications.

"Death threats in any form have a severe impact on those who receive them, and we are grateful to the victims in this case for coming forward.

"Today's sentencing shows that threats to kill and Islamophobic hate crime will always be treated extremely seriously by the CPS and we will take swift and decisive action when seeking these convictions."

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