New Delhi: Academic, professor, antisemite and terrorist. These are all terms used to describe Lebanese-Canadian academic Hassan Diab, who French courts convicted for a 1980 attack at a Paris synagogue that killed four and injured around four dozen people.
Diab—a Canadian citizen of Palestinian origin living in Canada—was at the centre of controversy after the Israeli government brought his case to public attention this week following news that he was serving as a professor of Sociology teaching a Social Justice in Action course at a Canadian university.
“UNCONSCIONABLE: Hassan Diab, the terrorist who murdered my friend’s mother, Aliza Shagrir, before his eyes in the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing still lectures at Canada’s Carleton University,” Idit Shamir, the Consul General of Israel to Canada, said in a post on X.
“A French court gave him LIFE for murdering 4 souls & maiming 46. Yet Carlton University rewards him with a teaching position? Every class this convicted terrorist teaches dishonors the lives he destroyed. This isn’t just a failure of justice – it’s spitting on the graves of Jewish victims. Shame on those who enable this,” Shamir added.
UNCONSCIONABLE: Hassan Diab, the terrorist who murdered my friend’s mother, Aliza Shagrir, before his eyes in the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing still lectures at Canada’s 🇨🇦@Carleton_U. A French court gave him LIFE for murdering 4 souls & maiming 46. Yet Carlton University… https://t.co/9z1nG3NAIb
— CG Idit Shamir 🎗️ (@ShamirIdit) November 2, 2024
Diab was the lone suspect in the 1980 bombing outside the Paris synagogue, the first attack against Jews in France since the end of World War II. A motorcycle bomb was timed to go off outside as worshippers were scheduled to leave the synagogue after celebrating the religious holiday of Simchat Torah.
It took almost 43 years before the French judicial system sentenced Diab in absentia in connection with planting the explosive in April 2023. Canada had previously extradited Diab to France in 2014, but he returned to Canada in 2018 after a French judge closed the case, citing insufficient evidence.
The Canadian government in August 2024, refused to say whether the French government had lodged a second extradition request for Diab following a petition in the House of Commons not to accept another French extradition appeal.
“The Government of Canada cannot confirm or deny the existence of requests for extradition as this would disclose confidential state-to-state communications,” said Arif Virani, Canada’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General in response to the petition.
“The Government of Canada emphasizes that all extradition requests that are received are examined carefully, taking into consideration the totality of the relevant circumstances, the Extradition Act, Canada’s international obligations, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” he added.
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Who is Hassan Diab?
Diab, originally a Lebanese citizen of Palestinian origin, became a Canadian citizen in 1993, 13 years after the bombing of the synagogue in Paris, and 15 years before the French government first applied for his extradition.
Diab, who has a Ph.D in sociology from New York’s Syracuse University, taught at different Canadian universities until October 2007 and had no criminal cases against him.
In January 2008, France first made its first formal request to Canada for assistance in evidence gathering and after nearly 11 months of investigations, Ottawa received an extradition request from Paris for Diab on 7 November.
Canadian authorities arrested Diab on 13 November, 2008, and he remained in detention until 31 March, 2009, before his release on strict bail conditions.
Diab was not on the radar of French authorities until 1999 when they received intelligence pointing to the Canadian citizen as a suspect in the bombing.
But it was only 15 years later that Diab was extradited to France where he spent a few years in prison before he was discharged in 2018, when he returned to Canada. He has been living in Canada since.
Diab has denied involvement in the attack and said he was a victim of mistaken identity. He said he was at university in Beirut at the time of the Paris bombing.
French courts rejected the argument in 2023 when he was sentenced to life in prison.
The incident and the case against Diab
On 3 October, 1980, a Suzuki motorcycle with a saddle bag packed with the bomb was parked outside the synagogue in the upscale 16th arrondissement of Paris.
The bomb exploded as worshippers were leaving the synagogue, killing four people and injuring over 40 others. The death toll could have been much higher had it not been for a delay in the religious service.
In the early days of the investigation, French authorities looked at a neo-Nazi connection to the bombing, but by the end of the year, their focus shifted to a connection from West Asia, reports the BBC.
Investigators traced the motorcycle to a dealership that sold it on 23 September, 1980, to a man using the pseudonym, Alexander Panadriyu. The alias on the sale documents led the investigators to the Celtic Hotel, near Rue Copernic, where Panadriyu had stayed on 22 September, 1980.
Panadriyu signed a registration card at the hotel, personally filling in the details with his name and saying he was a technician from Larnaca, Cyprus. The registration card was given to the police, who examined it and found no usable fingerprint traces.
An independent review of the extradition of Diab ordered by the Canadian government revealed that a usable fingerprint examined in 2007 did not match his print.
Police had found that Panadriyu was arrested a few days before the bombing for stealing pliers, but was released as he was not charged. He was not photographed by French authorities.
A sex worker and employees at the dealership as well as the hotel provided descriptions of the man using the pseudonym Alexander Panadriyu, but their accounts differed.
Authorities also found a car linked to the plot with a palm print. Years later, Diab’s palm print was compared to the print from the car but it did not match.
In 1982, according to the Canadian review, French authorities were informed that the motorcycle’s buyer was a person named Hassan, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). However, no further leads were investigated until 1999.
In that year, French intelligence services passed on information that the bomber was Hassan Diab, and he was linked with a second bombing in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1981.
French authorities received intelligence in October 1981 that Italian authorities at the airport in Rome had detained Ahmed Ben Mohammed—an alleged member of the PFLP—who was carrying a passport issued to Hassan Diab. The passport was issued in Beirut.
The passport had several stamps, including entry and exit stamps for Spain dated 18 September, 1980, and 7 October, 1980, respectively. The investigating theory was that Diab entered Spain using his own passport and travelled to France with fake documents, before returning to the Iberian country and exiting after the bombing.
Diab had applied for a new Lebanese passport in 1983, claiming his previous one was lost in April 1981.
The passport was one part of the evidence, which was considered the key to the prosecution’s case. Diab’s lawyer produced witnesses to show that he was in Beirut taking university exams in October 1980.
The prosecution also rested its case on handwriting samples from the hotel registration card and composite sketches of Panadriyu that resembled Diab. It said these elements along with the passport copy were enough to convict the Lebanese-Canadian citizen.
2014 extradition from Canada and release from France
After six years of legal battles between 2008 and 2014, Diab was finally surrendered to French authorities in November 2014. Between 2014 and 2018, Diab remained in a French prison near Paris.
Little information is available about Diab’s arrest and detainment in France, given the confidentiality of the proceedings. In May 2016, a French court granted the Canadian citizen bail, but this decision was appealed and 10 days after his release he was back in prison.
In October 2016, a French judge ordered the release of Diab, citing “consistent evidence” that he was in Lebanon at the time of the bombing. The release order was appealed immediately, and Diab remained in prison.
On 12 January, 2018, the case against Diab was discharged and his release was ordered. He returned to Canada on 15 January, 2018. The prosecutors appealed the discharge, and in 2021 a French court overturned the discharge—the first time in the history of terror cases in France.
In April 2023, the trial finally began, when French judges decided that Diab was the bomber behind the synagogue bombings and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The Lebanese-Canadian professor refused to return to the European country for the hearings and remains in Canada.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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