Forty years after the attack on the synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris, the Paris Court of Appeal on Wednesday returned to the assizes the only suspect found by French justice for this attack which had killed 4 people.
To read also: Attack of the rue Copernic: the fate of the pending file
The investigative chamber of the Court of Appeal on Wednesday reversed the dismissal rendered in January 2018 by the anti-terrorism judges for the benefit of Hassan Diab, a 67-year-old Lebanese-Canadian academic, accused of having posed the bomb.
The latter, who claims his innocence, returned to Canada after three years of pre-trial detention and is fighting against the justice of his country which had authorized his extradition at the end of 2014. “
This decision (of the court of appeal, note) is insane , because it is completely contrary to the law and the file, and consequently draws its inspiration only from the political correctness
”, reacted its defense announcing that it was going to contest this reversal before the Court of Cassation.
"
It censures a decision taken by two investigating judges, whose extremely rigorous motivation, was proportionate to the stakes and the seriousness of the facts.
Nobody can suspect these magistrates neither of weakness nor of naivety
”, declared William Bourdon, Apolline Cagnat and Amélie Lefevbre.
The investigation attributed the unclaimed attack on October 3, 1980 to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Special Operations (PFLP-OS), a group born out of a split from the PFLP, and French intelligence had identified Hassan Diab in 1999. But nearly 20 years later, the anti-terrorism judges had, against the opinion of the prosecution, considered that the charges against the former student of Beirut, were "
not sufficiently convincing
", a decision reversed Wednesday in the great satisfaction of the civil parties.
"
I am happy, we had been asking for a trial for years,
" said Corinne Adler, a civil party who had come to listen to the deliberations.
"For it
all to end there would have pained me a lot, for all the victims of which I belong,
" declared the one who, as a teenager, was celebrating her bat-mitzvah in the place of worship at the time of the explosion.
“
It is a satisfaction to obtain a trial, almost the end of a long fight,
” greeted Bernard Cahen, lawyer for the synagogue and the families of two victims who died in the attack.
"
If the Assize Court declares that Hassan Diab is not guilty, at least justice will have been rendered by a collegial and contradictory decision
", added the lawyer, however "
skeptical
" on the chances of obtaining a new extradition of the accused.
"
But we will try
".
