Diab faces first-degree murder trial in France.
Academic will face trial for 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue
Ottawa academic Hassan Diab has been formally charged in France with murder and attempted murder in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue.
Less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal of his extradition order, the 60-year-old Diab was flown under guard on an Air France commercial flight out of Montreal’s Trudeau airport on Friday and taken almost immediately upon arrival in Paris Saturday morning before a prosecuting judge.
The judicial appearance on Saturday marks the start of an investigative process that French lawyers say could last up to two years.
His Canadian lawyer, Donald Bayne, told the Citizen that he learned Diab was on his way to France when his office called the jail to arrange a visit for Diab’s wife, Rania, and their daughter, Jena, who turned two on Saturday.
Diab’s lawyers fear he will be convicted with tainted evidence and spend the rest of his life in a French prison.
Donald Pratt, a spokesman for Diab’s support group, said the whisking of Diab out of the country before he could say goodbye to his wife and child was “cruel ... a total disregard for the most elemental standards of human decency.”
The government had 45 days to enforce the deportation.
Bayne said Diab risks being convicted with tainted evidence and spending the rest of his life in a French prison for what would be four murders and multiple attempted murders.
“It’s tragic,” said Bayne. “We now have the classic recipe for the wrongful conviction of a Canadian citizen.”
French authorities say Diab is considered innocent until proven otherwise and promise he will get a fair trial.
After a six-year legal battle, Diab was ordered deported based on analysis of five handwritten words, printed in capital letters in a Paris hotel register.
French authorities say the person who wrote the fictitious Greek name in the register was the person who planted a bomb in a motorcycle saddlebag outside a synagogue in downtown Paris.
Four passersby were killed and about 40 were injured.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger ordered Diab’s extradition in 2011 after saying that he found the handwriting evidence “illogical, very problematic, convoluted, very confusing with conclusions that are suspect.”
Maranger said that if a fair trial were held in Canada, it would be unlikely Diab would be convicted, but the judge added that the extradition law left him with no choice.