Following a three-week trial, a French court on Friday convicted Hassian Diab, a sociology professor from the University of Ottawa Canada, to life imprisonment in absentia for the October 3, 1980 Copernic synagogue bombing in Paris, which resulted in four deaths and 46 injuries.
Diab is a dual national of Canada and Lebanon. Following the announcement of Diab’s guilty verdict, Canadian Prime-Minister, Justin Trudea, stated “Obviously, we will [look] carefully at the next steps at what the French Government chooses to do and what the French Tribunals choose to do, but we will always be there to stand up for Canadian’ and their rights.”
The verdict against Diab remains controversial, with Diab’s supporters identifying his conviction as a “miscarriage of justice.”
Amnesty International has expressed concern as well, stating that both the Canadian and French justice systems have found insufficient evidence to convict Diab. French investigative judges previously dismissed the case against him in January 2018 due to a lack of evidence, the organization said, adding that Diab has already spent over three years in a French maximum-security prison under prolonged isolation, which violates international human rights standards. In its statement of support, the organization called for an end to the protracted injustice and highlights that continuing the case breaches France’s binding international human rights obligations regarding arbitrary arrest, detention, and fair trials.
The controversy surrounding justice for the 1980 attack — which is broadly believed to have been the first major act of anti-semitic violence in France since World War II — plays out against the backdrop of a broader effort to come to grips with anti-semitism in the international justice community. Last week, more than 100 human rights organizations urged the United Nations (UN) to respect human rights while combating antisemitism. Specifically, these groups have asked UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the high representative for the UN Alliance of Civilizations, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, not to endorse or adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, as it has been used to falsely label criticism of Israeli government policies or advocacy for Palestinian rights as antisemitic.
