Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Canadian Faces Trial in 1980 Paris Bombing

An Ottawa professor has been ordered extradited to France, where he faces charges related to the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in Paris that killed four people.

Canada’s Justice Minister, Rob Nicholson, issued the extradition order on April 4 against Hassan Diab, who teaches sociology at two Ottawa universities.

The RCMP arrested Diab in November, 2008 in response to a request by France. An Ontario court ruled to extradite him last year.

The terrorist bombing in central Paris killed four passersby, and many others inside and outside the synagogue were injured.

The Lebanese-born Diab, a Canadian citizen, has denied any role in the attack, claiming that he is the victim of mistaken identity. He says he will take his case to higher courts, meaning he will stay in Canada for the foreseeable future.

“We expected this decision but not this way,” he told the Ottawa Citizen. “We expected the minister to address our points, which he did not. He just ignored them and rendered his decision based on his political beliefs more than anything else.”

Diab’s lawyer says a key plank in the appeal will be a written admission from Paris that authorities have not yet finished investigating the synagogue bombing. He said a Canadian citizen can only be extradited if he or she is wanted for trial, not “for the purpose of continuing an investigation to determine whether or not there will ever be a trial.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.