The perpetrator of the bombing, which took place on Oct. 3, 1980, and was understood to be the first fatal antisemitic attack in France since the Holocaust, was given a life sentence after 42 years.
The Paris court has convicted the Lebanese-Canadian Hassan Diab over 42 years after a bomb killed four and injured dozens outside a Paris synagogue. The perpetrator was given a life sentence, reports The Jerusalem Post.
Hassan Diab, a Lebanon native who became a Canadian citizen in 1993, was convicted in absentia on Friday after more than a decade of legal proceedings.
The bombing on Rue Copernic killed four people and injured 40. In 2008, authorities issued an arrest warrant for Diab, believing that he was a former member of a dissident group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations. In 2014, Diab was extradited to France from Canada in connection with the bombing and was indicted and imprisoned in Paris. He denied any connection to the attack and was released in 2018 due to evidence that he was in Beirut at the time. Prosecutors appealed, leading to another surprising turn of events in 2021, as the court upheld the earlier decision, directing Diab to stand trial.
Hassan Diab was convicted in absentia on Friday. Prosecutor Benjamin Chambre said: “It is the honour of the French judicial and police institutions to have persevered… It is a strong signal: France does not abdicate in the face of terrorism.”
Photo credit: AFP
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