2023-04-21 16:26:47
Recognized guilty of the attack on rue de Copernic (Paris 16th), perpetrated in 1980, the Lebanese-Canadian Hassan Diab was sentenced in his absence, this Friday, April 21, to life imprisonment by the Special Assize Court .
The verdict is in. The Lebanese-Canadian Hassan Diab, the only accused of the attack against the synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris on October 3, 1980, was sentenced this Friday, April 21 to life imprisonment by the Special Assize Court which judged him in his absence.
The prosecution had requested this maximum sentence, the only “conceivable” against the 69-year-old academic, believing that he was, “without any possible doubt”, the author of this anti-Semitic attack.
Forty-three years ago, four people were killed and 46 injured in the explosion of a bomb placed on a motorcycle parked in front of the synagogue on this street of 16e arrondissement.
It was the first attack targeting the Jewish community since the end of World War II. The investigation attributed him to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations (PFLP-OS). After very long investigations, Hassan Diab was the only individual to be implicated.
Battle of elements between prosecution and defense
Photos, robot portraits and handwriting expertise convinced the investigators that he was the bomber. His passport had even been found, nine years after the events, in the belongings of a suspected member of the PFLP-OS. On the document was a stamp of entry into Spain a few days before the attack, then of exit seventeen days later. However, it is from Spain that the commando would have left.
On the side of the defense of Hassan Diab, who pleaded the acquittal, it was highlighted the fact that he would have been in Lebanon at the time of the facts. An alibi corroborated by his ex-girlfriend and former students to whom he would have passed exams (he was a teacher), but swept away by the investigators because the dates of these tests could not be certified. The accused has always denied his involvement.
An absence pointed out
Hassan Diab was absent from the trial, preferring to stay in Canada, where he lives. In 2018, after being extradited to France, he was able to return there after a dismissal, which was reversed three years later. He did not wish to return to France for this legal meeting.
During their requisition, the representatives of the Pnat, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office, pointed to this absence as “infamy” and “new violence to the victims”. “His presence was his duty. His absence is part of his strategy. This avoids him the confrontation with the witnesses, those who have formally recognized him”, they had supported.
“He’s caught up in his own mechanics of denial and flight. It would be a betrayal of himself to admit the facts. The feeling of impunity fuels a culture of denial. (…) To justice, to you magistrates to break this feeling of impunity”, they had continued, before concluding: “by his cowardice, he forces us to require the heaviest sentence. We are asking for life imprisonment”.
He was also asked to issue an arrest warrant against him, so that he could be arrested in Canada and handed over to France.
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