Attack on synagogue in Paris
Life sentence for 69-year-olds 40 years after the fact
04/21/2023, 10:12 p.m
More than 40 years after a bloody attack on a synagogue in Paris, one of the bombers was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment. A Parisian special court finds the elderly man with Lebanese roots living in Canada guilty.
More than four decades after an attack on a Paris synagogue that killed four, a Paris court has sentenced a 69-year-old to life imprisonment. With its verdict, the court followed the request of the public prosecutor’s office. This had emphasized that there was “no possible doubt” about the responsibility of the Canadian with Lebanese roots for the anti-Semitic attack.
The Rue Copernic attack on October 3, 1980 was the first anti-Semitic attack in France since World War II. According to the judges, the accused Hassan Diab parked a motorcycle with an explosive device near the synagogue on behalf of a radical Palestinian group. The blast killed four people and injured 46 others.
The trial was the country’s longest-running anti-terrorist trial. The focus of the investigation was a passport in the name of Hassan Diab with a poor-quality photo. The passport was found on a suspected member of the Palestinian group, but this only became known 18 years after the crime. The stamps referred to a stay in Spain, where the attack is said to have been planned. Diab, on the other hand, stated that he was in Beirut at the time of the crime. He lost his passport.
Numerous survivors speak out
Diab was arrested in Canada in 2008 and extradited to France six years later. A first procedure was discontinued in 2018. At the time, the examining magistrate considered Diab’s testimony to be likely that he was in Beirut at the time of the crime. After the first trial was terminated, Diab left for Canada unmolested. Three years later, the French judiciary resumed the proceedings against him, but initially refrained from issuing a new arrest warrant. The trial against him therefore took place in the absence of the accused.
In the three-week trial, numerous survivors of the attack also had their say. One woman said, “From that moment on, I was never the same again.” The targeted attack on Jews gave her the feeling that she was no longer French. Another survivor told the court: “On that October 3rd something inside me died forever – a spark of life.”