Copernic Street attack: calls for the extradition of Hassan Diab from Canada

On both sides of the Atlantic, the message is the same: 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.

There are “quiet days in Canada”

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.

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 advice to the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, and to the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron.

He “should be behind bars in France”

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 comes from the Canadian Center for Israel and Jewish Relations (CIJA). “There should be extradition and there should be transparency” on the part of the Government of Canada, explains Richard Marceau, senior vice-president and lawyer for CIJA. “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.

“The civil parties are stubborn, that’s their role”

“The civil parties are stubborn today, that’s their role,” comments 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 in fact extradited to France in 2014. He returned to Canada as soon as he was released from pre-trial detention after a dismissal of the case granted in January 2018 by two investigating judges, 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.