Diab says he won’t pursue compensation from Canada

“I don’t want a penny from the Canadian taxpayers,” Hassan Diab said after a near-decade-long legal ordeal, vowing instead to fight to change the extradition law that allowed the Ottawa professor to languish in a French prison for three years.

Terror charges brought by French authorities nine years ago were dismissed last week by judges in that country who ruled the prosecution not only had insufficient evidence to convict Diab, but had presented insufficient evidence to even pursue a trial.

“Justice has finally prevailed. Miracles can happen still these days,” Diab said at a news conference Wednesday at Amnesty International’s Ottawa office, where he was flanked by his lawyer, Don Bayne, and Amnesty International Canada secretary general Alex Neve.

Diab was reunited with his wife and young children after returning home to Canada on Monday. His wife, Rania Tfaily, paid the airfare for the flight home, travel that was aided by government officials with Global Affairs Canada.

Diab and his lawyer said they never considered suing the Canadian government for allowing the extradition to occur, despite the numerous legal challenges the defence mounted during Diab’s six years of living under restrictive bail conditions and the three years he spent in a French prison — often spending 20 to 22 hours in a solitary cell — while awaiting a trial that was eventually dismissed.

He was extradited in November 2014 after his defence team exhausted all legal avenues, and despite the extradition judge describing the evidence against Diab as “very problematic” and “convoluted,” in the words of Ontario Superior Justice Robert Maranger.

“I would like to make up for what I’ve missed all these years — 1,154 days away from Canada and six years here before (under restrictive bail conditions), of course,” Diab said.

“The mistake was an institutional mistake. It wasn’t a person who made the mistake. I don’t want anything from these people, I just want to avoid the prospect of having innocent people in this ordeal again.”

Diab said, under the French legal system, accused persons released without trial can be eligible for state compensation for each day spent in custody, though he joked that would amount to less than the daily rate for a two-star hotel. That money, if any, would go to paying back his legal fees and the numerous expenses incurred over the years by his support group.

“It’s not a vendetta thing or to get money,” Diab said. “I said it many times, even when I was in my cell. I don’t want any penny from the taxpayers in Canada. If the law allows anything, I will get no penny personally. The money will go to the people who paid their own money.”

Bayne said that compensation would be pending an appeal process that is still to be resolved in French courts. He said an appeal has already been filed from the prosecution, and a civil appeal filed from the victims of the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing for which Diab stood accused.

“One can understand the pain of the victims. One can understand France’s concern to try to bring some closure,” Bayne said. “I would hope that the parties appealing want justice, and not simple revenge or a scapegoat.”

Diab’s extradition ordeal raises troubling questions for Canada and for Canadians, Bayne said.

Under the current Extradition Act, a citizen is only extradited to a foreign country that is prepared to proceed with trial. But Diab, Bayne said, was extradited and jailed for more than three years while the case was still under investigation.

“How then could Dr. Diab have ever had his liberty stripped by our extradition system, to send him to a foreign country?” Bayne said.

Bayne said the parliamentarians who enacted the 1999 law “promised that no Canadian would ever languish in a foreign prison during a foreign investigation, yet that’s exactly what this country’s courts let happen to Diab.

“We turned him over for a foreign investigation, not a foreign trial. And extradition, our Supreme Court promised us in 2006, would only occur on a showing of reliable evidence. The French judges (JeanMarc Herbaut and Richard Foltzer) ruled there was no reliable evidence even to justify a trial.

“France delivered the justice that our courts, through the Extradition Act and process and the way it’s been interpreted, failed to do. Dr. Diab never should have been extradited, so that raises questions.”

Justice Department officials have said that Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould “is seeking guidance from her officials regarding the effectiveness of existing protections in the Extradition Act, and has asked them to look at any lessons learned in relation to this case.”

Department spokesman Ian McLeod said government officials are limited in discussing specific legal aspects of the Diab case.

“The standard of proof required by Canada for extradition is in line with standards applied to extradition around the world,” McLeod said. “The minister of justice and attorney general of Canada always works to ensure that all federal laws are consistent with the charter, the rule of law, and the highest standards of justice and fairness.”

I said it many times, even when I was in my cell. I don’t want any penny from the taxpayers in Canada.