A Lebanese-Canadian academic who is the lone suspect in a 1980 bombing outside a Paris synagogue was to go on trial yesterday, nearly 43 years after four people were killed and 46 wounded in the unclaimed attack.
French authorities identified Hassan Diab as a suspect in 1999. They say he planted the bomb on the evening of Oct. 3, 1980, outside the synagogue where 320 worshipers had gathered to mark the end of a Jewish holiday.
Diab, 69, has denied involvement in the attack and said he was at a university in Beirut at the time of the western Paris bombing. His supporters and lawyers in France and Canada say Diab has been wrongly pursued by the French judicial authorities as a victim of a mistaken identity.
Photo: AFP
French investigators attributed the synagogue attack to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations. Canada authorized Diab’s extradition to France at the end of 2014. He spent three years in pretrial detention, but anti-terrorism judges ordered him freed from French custody due to a lack of evidence, and he returned to Canada.
France’s court of appeal ruled in January 2021 that Diab must stand trial on terrorism-related charges. If convicted, he could receive a life sentence. A verdict is expected by April 21. He lives in Ottawa and would be tried in absentia.
Survivors of the attack and victims’ families are expected to attend the proceedings in Paris. For them, the long path to trial might be justice delayed, but at least it is not justice denied, their lawyers said ahead of court proceedings.
The victims’ attorneys say the trial would serve as deterrent for terrorist acts and anti-Semitic sentiments.
“It’s a positive development that the trial is taking place, even if he [the suspect] will not be there and even if he is acquitted,” said Bernard Cahen, a lawyer for two families who lost loved ones.
David Pere, a lawyer for a then-14-year-old victim who was celebrating his bar mitzvah at the time of the attack, said the “path of justice must be followed,” even after more than four decades of investigation and legal drama.
There is a suspect in the attack, and Pere said his client wants to hear what Diab has to say in court, even if only through his lawyers.
“A terrorist attack is something that haunts you every day of your life,” Pere said. “A trial is a result [of an attack] not a revenge for it.”
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
RSS