MONTREAL — Jewish groups say they’re satisfied with the four-year prison sentence handed down last week to the man co-accused in the firebombings of two Jewish institutions in 2006 and 2007, and with the judge’s recognition that the attacks were not only hate-motivated crimes, but terrorist acts rooted in a radical and violent ideology.

Quebec Court Judge Gilles Cadieux delivered the sentence recommended by the Crown for Azim Ibragimov, 25, who pleaded guilty last April to charges in connection with his throwing a Molotov cocktail at an Outremont yeshiva in September 2006, as well as for setting off an explosive device made from two propane canisters outside the Snowdon YM-YWHA in April 2007 and for writing letters saying the crimes were carried out in the name of the Islamic jihad and threatening further harm. Ibragimov also pleaded guilty to setting fire to a parked car in the east end of Montreal, a crime apparently not related to the Jewish community.

Ibragimov, who was described in court as a non-practising Muslim and reportedly born in Kazakhstan, has only 10 months of the sentence left to serve. He has been in custody since his arrest in April 2007 and those 19 months behind bars count as double time. He will be under three years’ probation when his jail term is completed.

Just how much more time Ibragimov will actually be locked up is unclear. Statutory release is normally granted after two-thirds of a prison term.

Ibragimov’s co-accused, Omar Bulphred, who was arrested at the same time and continues to be detained, has pleaded not guilty to these and five other counts. No date has been set for his trial, but he’s scheduled to be back in court Dec. 16.

“By emphasizing the heinous nature and the ideological basis for the acts perpetrated by Mr. Ibragimov, the court took into consideration the gravity of the crimes of which he was convicted,” CJC Quebec Region president Victor Goldbloom said in a statement.

“Mr. Ibragimov’s acts were no simple acts of random vandalism, but acts motivated by hate against the Jewish community. As such, the sentence meted out is just and appropriate.”

Allan Adel, national chair of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights, said that the sentence “reinforces the important role that the criminal justice system plays in holding to account perpetrators who commit vile and dangerous acts of hate. While the devastating impact of Ibragimov’s hate-filled crimes continues to take its toll on the Quebec Jewish community in particular, it is society at large whose rights and freedoms are also threatened.”

Both organizations had asked for an exemplary sentence that would send a message that these kind of hate crimes are not tolerated, and they had emphasized the fear the two attacks had provoked throughout the Jewish community.

In an argument that the judge appeared to accept, prosecutor Mario Dufresne said during a pre-sentencing hearing that the crimes aimed to terrorize the Jewish community and that the punishment should reflect the seriousness of the motivation.

Ibragimov’s lawyer had asked for a suspended sentence plus 240 hours of community service.

The targets were the chassidic Skver community’s Toldos Yakov Yosef school, whose entrance was heavily damaged, and the Y’s Ben Weider Jewish Community Centre, which was untouched by the explosion. No one was injured in the late-night assaults, but in both instances, people had left the buildings only about half an hour earlier.

Judge Cadieux called Ibragimov’s crimes “racist and hateful” and said they caused “panic” in the Jewish community.

He was not swayed by Ibragimov’s defence that the younger Bulphred was the mastermind and that Ibragimov had naively been lured in by the promise of payment, nor by testimony from a Ukrainian-born ex-girlfriend, who is part Jewish and had lived in Israel, that Ibragimov was not racist or a fanatic.

Ibragimov, who had no criminal record, read a letter of apology in court during the pre-sentencing arguments and asked for a second chance.

Cadieux said Bulphred may have been the instigator, but Ibragimov cannot be considered merely an accessory. It was Ibragimov who threw the firebomb at the school (he was caught on its surveillance camera videotape) and who seven months later, after having plenty of time for reflection, placed the explosive device outside the Y, he ruled.

After the school incident, Ibragimov wrote two letters, which were entered into evidence, that declared: “In the name of Islamic jihad, we claim responsibility for the attack on the Jewish school, and other attacks are being planned against the Zionists. Free our brothers imprisoned in Toronto,” an apparent reference to the arrests in the summer of 2006 of 17 suspects allegedly involved in an Islamist terror plot.

Ibragimov’s lawyers argued that the letters’ content was dictated by Bulphred.