Hanging In There

It's nothing if not completely puzzling that the extradition as requested by France, of Hassan Diab still hasn't taken place.  Despite that Justice Robert Maranger ruled the way clear to extradite Mr. Diab, and despite that Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Robert Nicholson signed an order on April 13, surrendering Mr. Diab to France, he is still sitting in Ottawa.


Awaiting what, exactly?

Mr. Diab, formerly a sociology lecturer at University of Ottawa and Carleton University, is held by France to have been a member of the Fatah terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  Who was involved in a 1980 motorbike bomb that exploded outside the Copernic Synagogue in Paris, killing four people and injuring 42 others.

Mr. Diab, who has been living in Canada for many years, denies he was involved in any terrorist activities.  He has Lebanese-Canadian dual citizenship.  And he has quite a few groups and influential individuals supporting his contention of innocence.  All of them feeling he has been unjustly charged, all of them wanting the extradition order to be ignored.

In hearings a the Ottawa Federal Tribunal the extradition proceedings were described by Mr. Diab's lawyers as a farce.  The evidence held by French authorities in the case was deemed by his defence to be inadequate and improper. They brought forward handwriting experts all of whom denounced the incompetence and errors in the affirmative evidence held by French authorities, validated by a French handwriting expert.

Mr. Diab's lawyers cast aspersions on the professional integrity and fairness of French law and order.  The French legal system is evidently substandard, not to be entrusted with the future welfare of the man whom they claim was responsible for a terrorist bombing.  Of course, if the evidence is as flimsy and unreliable as Mr. Diab's legal team claims it to be, he should be acquitted.

There are numberless Internet sites all clamouring for "Justice for Hassan Diab".  There is also the simple matter of justice for the victims of the Copernic bombing.  France wishes to bring closure to this dreadful tragedy.  And Mr. Diab should be anxious to clear his name of any suspicion that he was involved in this attack.