Norwegian justice ruled Friday, September 25 met the legal conditions for an extradition to France of one of the alleged perpetrators of the attack on the rue des Rosiers, which killed six people in the Jewish quarter of Paris in 1982.
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Subject to appeal, the decision of the Oslo court relates only to the legality of such an extradition, that of extraditing or not Walid Abdulrahman Abou Zayed ultimately falling to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, or even to the government meeting in its entirety before the king.
"
The conditions for extradition to France are (...) met
", ruled Judge Pernille Wold Ellingsen.
Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed "
can be extradited
" under Norwegian law, she concluded.
Arrested on September 9 in Norway, where he has lived since 1991, this 61-year-old man of Palestinian origin claims his innocence and refuses to be sent to France, where he faces legal proceedings.
“
I am opposed to it because I have nothing to do with it,
” he declared a few hours earlier in court, where he arrived under police escort, waving his hand in victory.
On August 9, 1982, a commando group of three to five men threw a grenade into the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the “
Pletzl
”, a historic Jewish quarter in Paris, then opened fire in the establishment and against passers-by.
The attack also left 22 injured.
The operation was quickly attributed to the Fatah-Revolutionary Council (Fatah-CR) of Abu Nidal, a Palestinian dissident group of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
"
I don't like France
"
French justice suspects Abou Zayed, naturalized Norwegian in 1997, of having been "
one of the shooters of the attack
".
Assures him that he was in Monte-Carlo at the time of the attack.
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Norway had not followed up on a previous request from Paris in 2015 because it was not then extraditing its nationals.
But the entry into force last year of an agreement with the EU and Iceland now allows it.
According to Norwegian law, a legally binding extradition decision must “
if possible
” be made no later than 45 days after an arrest.
Prosecution representative Anne Karoline Bakken Staff said on Friday that an extradition could come with a requirement that Abu Zayed serve a possible sentence in Norway.
"
I don't like France
", proclaimed the latter through the voice of an interpreter.
"
I don't want to go to prison in France
".
