Deeply Shocked

"I have been living a Kafkaesque nightmare for over six years, fighting false allegations against me, enduring detention, strict bail conditions, the loss of my employment and enormous stress on my family."
"It is beyond devastating that the Supreme Court would allow my extradition for a crime that I did not commit based on a handwriting analysis that was shown by world-renowned handwriting experts to be wholly unreliable, totally erroneous and biased."
"It is a shock that this would happen in Canada."
Hassan Diab, Palestinian-Lebanese-Canadian

"I didn't hear a sound. I just saw the ceiling falling and shattering. People started screaming because they were hurt and bleeding. I didn't know what was happening. I didn't realize it was a bomb because I didn't hear anything. The rabbi told us to stay inside."
"We left very slowly because we were in shock. It was very quiet. We moved into the street and that's where I saw dead people on the ground. It was dark because of the smoke. There was a car on fire."
"I didn't look at the dead and injured people. I suppose it was self-preservation. But my friend Philippe was staring at them. He was in shock. I remember feeling like a grownup because I took his hand said 'Come on, Philippe.' And I pulled him out of the way."
Isabelle Serfaty Bloch, 12 years old in 1980

 Des pompiers et des policiers sur les lieux de l'attentat contre la synagogue de la rue Copernic, à Paris, le 3 octobre 1980 (Photo -. AFP)

No doubt Mr. Diab is shocked, who wouldn't be under those circumstances, after all? It has taken the government of Canada six years to get to this point where all avenues of appeal have been exhausted and Canada will now be enabled to fulfill its treaty obligations to a collegial democratic nation which this nation holds in high esteem. A country, moreover, whose justice system has never been brought into question. Until now.

Mr. Diab is somewhat contorting the reality of the situation; while insisting he has been fighting false allegations, he has been doing it in the wrong place. It is not Canada which wishes to question him over past activities he is accused of taking part in, but France. A serious crime against humanity was perpetrated there in Paris on rue Copernic in 1980 when someone detonated explosives outside a synagogue that killed four people and injured many others.

And Mr. Diab is the individual that prosecutors in Paris have fastened their enquiry upon. It is there, in France, and through the medium of that enquiry that he will be given the opportunity to fight what he insists are false allegations. If he is as interested as he has always claimed to be in clearing his name, then the correct venue where he must concentrate that objective toward is in Paris, France.

He and his lawyer have judged the French justice system untrustworthy, just as that justice system views Mr. Diab as a potential malefactor.

Mr. Diab has been incarcerated latterly awaiting the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada to hear his appeal against extradition. That appeal has been denied. Mr. Diab is no longer able to veer away from taking responsibility for himself by facing the French justice system where he will be given the opportunity to clear his name and have himself declared innocent of all charges levelled against him.

Within the next 45 days French police will travel to Canada to escort Mr. Diab back with them to France where he will eventually make an appearance before an investigating judge. Which will itself initiate a procedure known as an investigation. That investigation may or may not result in his being charged with a crime he denies he had anything to do with. Mr. Diab's lawyer speaks of the process taking as long as two years before it is resolved.

Had Mr. Diab allowed himself to be sent to France six years ago his agony might now be long in the past. He speaks of six years of nightmare. Within that six years, despite the concern and aggravation he has without doubt suffered, he found it within himself to live a life normal enough to sire two children, and to enjoy a life with a young family, despite the unorthodox background he was living through.

A photo taken Oct. 6, 1980, shows then-Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac , right, looking at the damage after a bomb attack at a Paris synagogue on rue Copernic killed four people.   DELMAS/AFP/Getty Images / Ottawa Citizen archives

France is not the Islamic Republic of Iran, nor is it Saudi Arabia where rights are a matter that the state deems feasible under a system of governance that metes out capital punishment for 'crimes' that barely make a dent in the criminal justice system of most democracies. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Diab's hysteria over his fearful expectations that a corrupt French justice system will eventuate into the reality he dreads.

Or whether, on the other hand, reliable and unmistakable evidence of wrong-doing will be presented which Mr. Diab will have to explain away. The agony and the suffering experienced by the victims of the rue Copernic synagogue explosion deserves some consideration as well, in the expectation that justice must be done, and their human rights considered in the closure of the dreadful event that altered their lives forever.

The attack in Paris was but one of many that targeted Jews at a time when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist group that committed many horrible atrocities were actively treating the world and Jews to fear and violence and death erupting where it was least expected as an expression of their enduring hate for the State of Israel's existence in the Middle East, and by extension, for all Jews.

As Shimon Koffler, chief executive of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Canada stated: "We are pleased that the highest court in the land will honour the French extradition request and allow the accused to return to France so the victims may have their day in court." To which Mr. Diab countered reasonably enough: "I vow to never give up. And I will always remain hopeful that I will eventually return to my home in Canada and be reunited with my wife and children."

And likely, he will.