2023-04-21 20:38:29
“Is the accused guilty? » « Oui », replied Friday, April 21 the specially composed Assize Court of Paris, which sentenced the Lebanese-Canadian academic Hassan Diab, 69, to life imprisonment with an arrest warrant. The court followed the requisitions of the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) which demanded the maximum sentence against Mr. Diab, tried in his absence, forty-two years after the bomb attack on the synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris, which killed four people and injured dozens on October 3, 1980. Several civil parties hugged each other for a long time when the verdict was announced.
The Assize Court based most of its decision on Mr. Diab’s passport, seized in 1981 in Rome from a senior official of the PFLP-OS, a far-left Palestinian clandestine organization based in Lebanon. The document included entry and exit stamps in Spain, from where the Copernic commando would have left, compatible with the commission of the attack.
The court considered that this “centerpiece” proved that Hassan Diab belonged to the PFLP-OS and that “material elements accredit the information” designating him as the bomber. She dismissed the “alibis” presented by the Lebanese-Canadian, judging « variables » et “unbelievable” his explanations on the loss of this passport and on his presence in Beirut at the time of the events.
Decisive development in 1999
This verdict puts an end to one of the longest cases in French judicial history. Long at a standstill, the investigation experienced a decisive development in 1999 with the release of an intelligence note from the DST, naming ten people responsible for the attack, the alleged sponsor, Selim Abou Salem, leader of the PFLP-OS , to both performers. Among these, a certain Hassan Diab living in Canada. After failing to locate the other organizers of the attack, the judicial investigation focused on the Lebanese-Canadian academic.
An arrest warrant accompanied by an extradition request was issued against him by Judge Trévidic at the end of 2008. After six years of fierce proceedings during which Hassan Diab sought by all means to oppose his extradition, he was handed over to the French authorities and placed in detention at the end of 2014. For a year, he remained silent. After a change of examining magistrate, he decided to speak, denying any presence in Paris at the time of the attack.
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