Global

Paris Synagogue Bomber Convicted after 43 Years

More than 42 years after the deadly bombing of a Paris synagogue, a court in Paris has convicted a Lebanese-Canadian university professor of carrying out the attack.

The judges decided that Hassan Diab, 69, was the young man who planted the motorcycle bomb in the Rue Copernic on 3 October 1980.

Four people were killed and 38 others wounded in the bombing.

Diab refused to attend the trial, but the judges gave him a life sentence.

Prosecutors had argued it was “beyond possible doubt” that he was behind the bombing. His supporters have condemned the trial as “manifestly unfair”.

The Rue Copernic attack was the first to target Jews in France since World War Two, and became a template for many other similar attacks linked to militants in the Middle East in the years that followed.

The decades-long investigation became a byword both for protracted judicial confusion, as well as for the dogged determination of a handful of magistrates not to let the case be forgotten.

Diab, 69, a Lebanese of Palestinian origin who obtained Canadian nationality in 1993 and teaches sociology in Ottawa, was first named as a suspect on the basis of new evidence in 1999, already nearly 20 years after the killings.

Eight years later the French issued an international arrest warrant, and it was not until 2014 that Canada agreed to extradite. But in 2018 French magistrates declared the case closed for lack of proof, allowing Diab to return to Canada.

Finally in 2021 an appeal against the closure of the case was upheld in the Supreme Court, the first time this had ever happened in a French terrorism case. It meant a trial could finally go ahead, and it began earlier this month.

From the start Diab has protested his innocence and he did not return to France for the trial, which was conducted in his absence. His conviction means that a second extradition request will have to follow, though with strong doubts over whether it will succeed.

Responding to the verdict, the Hassan Diab Support Committee in Canada called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make it “absolutely clear” that no second extradition would be accepted.

They said 15 years of legal “nightmare… is now fully exposed in its overwhelming cruelty and injustice”.

Over three weeks the court heard an account of the known facts of the case, plus arguments identifying Diab as the bomber and counter-evidence suggesting he was a victim of mistaken identity.

None of the original investigating team was alive to speak, and the surviving witnesses who saw the attacker in 1980 all admitted that after more than 40 years their memories were too hazy to be reliable.

The bomb was left in the saddle-bag of a Suzuki motorbike outside a synagogue in the wealthy 16th arrondissement of Paris. Had there not been a delay, the pavement would have been packed with people leaving the religious service inside.

In 1980 the investigation initially centred on neo-Nazis, and there were mass demonstrations by the political left. But a claim by an ultra-right group was found to be fake, and by the end of the year attention had switched to a Middle East connection.

The bomber was identified as having a fake Cypriot passport bearing the name Alexander Panadriyu.

He was believed to have entered France from another European country as part of a larger group, and to have bought the motorbike at a shop near the Arc de Triomphe.

He was thought to belong to a dissident Palestinian group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations (PFLP-SO).

But the investigation hit a wall, and it was not till 1999 that Hassan Diab’s name emerged from new information, believed to emanate from the former Soviet bloc.

Italian authorities then revealed that in 1981 the passport of a Hassan Diab had been found at Rome airport in the possession of a senior figure from the PFLP-SO. The passport bore stamps showing the holder entering and leaving Spain around the dates of the Rue Copernic attack.

The core of the prosecution case rested on the passport.

Under questioning while in custody, Diab explained that he had lost the passport just a month before the attack. But in Lebanon a French judge found an official declaration for the lost passport – a declaration made in 1983 and with a date of loss in April 1981.

The defence argued that all of this was circumstantial, and that there was still no hard evidence that Diab was in France in October 1980. They produced testimony from friends in Beirut who said Diab had been sitting university exams at the time of the attack.

Handwriting analysts who said the hotel registration form signed by the attacker was consistent with Diab’s script were also dismissed as inconclusive.

“The only decision that is juridically possible – even if it’s on a human level a difficult one – is acquittal,” defence lawyer William Bourdon said in his summing-up Thursday. “I am here before you to prevent a judicial error.”

But prosecutor Benjamin Chambre, while regretting that all the other members of the terrorist group had escaped without charge, said: “With Hassan Diab, we have the bomb-maker and the bomb-planter. That’s already something.”

BBC

Follow us on:

AriseNews

View Comments

  • NIGERIA 🇳🇬 CUST0M SERVICE REPLACEMENT FORM IS FINALLY OUT FOR 2023/2024 BATCH B AND YOU CAN GET IT DIRECTLY FROM THE ZONAL HEADQUARTERS IN NIGERIA INTERESTED APPLICANT THAT HAS WAECE, NECO, NCE, ND, HND, BSC CAN APPLY PLEASE KINDLY CONTACT ME ON: FOR MORE INQUIRIES

    CONTACT
    OFFICER MrsEze ON
    [O7O 4540-6674 ]
    BAGS OF RICE 18K
    OIL 10K

    CARS FEATURES AND
    PRICE BELOW

    GOLF 2,3,4,5 #250,000
    TOYOTA CAMRY BIG
    DADDY #550,000
    TOYOTA CAMRY
    TINYLIGH= #350,000
    TOYOTA CAMRY
    MUSCLE= #850,000
    TOYOTA CAMRY
    PENCILLIGHT=#400,000
    TOYOTA COROLLA
    le=#550,000
    TOYOTA COROLLA
    S=#750,000
    TOYOTA
    VENZA=#950,00 1.8m
    TOYOTA Hilux 1.5 million
    TOYOTA AVALON
    #800,000
    TOYOTA AVENSIS
    #700,000
    TOYOTA RAV4 1.2m
    TOYOTA SIENNA
    #550,000
    TOYOTA
    4runner#850,000
    TOYOTA TUNDRA 1.9m
    TOYOTA PICNIC
    #550,000
    TOYOTA Highlander
    #950,000
    TOYOTA PADRO JEEP
    1.6m
    TOYOTA LAND
    CRUISER=1.5m
    TOYOTA YARIS #459,000
    TOYOTA MATRIX
    #650,000
    TOYOTA HAICE BUS
    #750,000
    ACCURA ZDX 1.6m
    ACCURA MDX 1.9m
    HONDA PILOT #950,00
    HONDA BABY BOY
    #550,000
    HONDA END OF
    DISCUSSION
    HONDA ACCORD
    #450,000
    Honda CR-V #850,000
    INFINITY fx450 #750,000
    to 1.4m
    NISSAN MURANO
    #650,00
    LEXUS RX 350 #950,000
    LEXUS RS 330 # 850,000
    LEXUS RS 300 # 750,000
    LEXUS RX 470 1.5m
    All NEGOTIABLE WE
    RENDER GOOD SERVICE
    TO CUSTOMER ....{ E.T .C}

    LOCATION AT OGUN
    STATE IDIROKO BORDER WE
    HAVE TWO OPTION
    ELDER WE DELIVERY OR
    YOU COME OVER IF WE
    HAVE TO COME OVER WE
    NEED THIS FROM YOU

    {1} NATIONAL ID CARD
    {2} BORDER PERMIT
    {3} INSPECTION DOCUMENTS
    {4} 2PASSPORT

    THANKS FOR YOUR
    PATRONAGE WE

    DELIVER TO 36 STATE IN
    NIGERIA AND ALSO
    COME DOWN WITH THE
    FULL PAYMENT CALL
    FOR MORE
    INFORMATION
    {O7O 4540-6674 }

Recent Posts

Anambra Lacks Regulatory Framework For Crowd Control, Says Information Commissioner Law Mefor

Anambra lacks formal crowd control law but is working on a regulatory framework, says state…

2 hours ago

Akugbe Iyamu: We Must Be Prepared For Severe Droughts, Hunger in 2025

Retired Air Vice Marshal Akugbe Iyamu has called for urgent preparations for drought, heatwaves, and…

2 hours ago

Romania Set To Form New Government With Marcel Ciolacu As Prime Minister

Romania's president Klaus Iohannis is expected to designate Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu to form a…

3 hours ago

Nigeria Announces Public Holidays for Christmas and New Year Celebrations

Federal Government of Nigeria has declared public holidays to mark Christmas and New Year festivities…

3 hours ago

IGP Orders Investigation into Death of Ilorin Detainee Jimoh Abdulquadri in Police Custody

IGP Egbetokun has ordered an investigation into Jimoh Abdulquadri’s death in police custody, promising justice…

6 hours ago

Trump Dismisses Claims That Elon Musk Holds Real Power Behind US President-Elect

Donald Trump has rejected suggestions that Elon Musk is the true influence behind the newly…

6 hours ago