Same message on both sides of the Atlantic: a Parisian lawyer for victims and the organ of the Canadian Jewish community are calling, separately, for the extradition from Canada to France of Hassan Diab, sentenced in 2023 in Paris in his absence for the attack on Rue Copernic which occurred 46 years ago, to the day.
On October 3, 1980, the explosion of a bomb placed on a motorcycle near the synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris, not far from the avenue des Champs-Élysées, left four dead and several dozen injured. On April 21, 2023, after three weeks of debate and nearly eight hours of deliberation, the Paris Special Assize Court sentenced a Lebanese-Canadian academic, Hassan Diab, now in his seventies, to the maximum sentence, life imprisonment, in his absence, and issued an arrest warrant against him.
“Denying this past and the facts with which he is accused, but refusing to come and explain it to Paris, Hassan Diab is spending peaceful days in Canada,” denounces Me Antoine Casubolo Ferro, Parisian lawyer for 19 civil parties, in a press release sent to AFP on Saturday. Since the verdict of the special assize court “those who were the children of the synagogue on rue Copernic and the relatives of the deceased victims have been waiting for the extradition of Hassan Diab,” he continues. “Where is the extradition request?”, addresses the council to the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, and to the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron.
“Unacceptable”
Me Casubolo Ferro also calls on the candidates for the presidential election: “Would it not be fair to establish as a prerequisite, essential, before any rapprochement between Canada, France and the European Union, the extradition of Hassan Diab?” In mid-September, France welcomed the project to deepen the relationship between the European Union and Canada.
A similar message therefore comes from the Canadian Advisory Center for Jewish and Israeli Relations (CIJA). “There should be extradition and there should be transparency” on the part of the Government of Canada, Richard Marceau, senior vice-president and lawyer for CIJA, told AFP. “Despite the decision of the special assize court of Paris, which declared Mr. (Hassan) Diab guilty, he is still at large in Canada. It is unacceptable that after 46 years, justice has not been done,” criticizes the official.
“Mr. (Hassan) Diab should be behind bars in France,” he says. Unlike France, which does not extradite its nationals, Canada can do so on a case-by-case basis. What happens to Hassan Diab? Carleton University in Ottawa told AFP that he is not currently “employed there and has not been since December 2024”. The university emphasizes that it “does not disclose personal information” for “privacy reasons.”
Many twists and turns
During the 2023 trial, the prosecution estimated that life imprisonment was the only “possible” sentence for Hassan Diab and that he was “without any possible doubt” the author of this never-claimed attack. The defense had pleaded for acquittal, asking professional magistrates to “avoid a miscarriage of justice”.
“The civil parties are persisting today, that’s their role,” commented to AFP Mr. William Bourdon, Hassan Diab’s Parisian lawyer. “They cannot forget the great reservations of the Canadian judge when he authorized the extradition of Hassan Diab given the weakness of the charges,” insists the lawyer. Hassan Diab, who has continued to proclaim his innocence, was extradited to France in 2014. He returned to Canada as soon as he was released from pre-trial detention after a dismissal of charges was granted in January 2018, one of the many twists and turns in the case.
The extradition procedure, which was concluded after six years, had strained diplomatic relations between France and Canada. “Certainly there is a conviction that we consider very unfair but in perfect contradiction with a very reasoned dismissal order issued (in 2018) by two anti-terrorism investigating judges after long investigations,” recalls Me Bourdon. “In this context, a favorable decision by the Canadian judge is very unrealistic” for a possible extradition procedure, he concludes.
