The trial of the attack on the synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris, which killed four people and injured dozens on October 3, 1980, opened on Monday morning, 43 years after the events and in the absence of the single accused.
Hassan Diab, a 69-year-old Lebanese-Canadian who has always claimed his innocence, did not appear at the opening of the proceedings, as he had already informed the court during a preliminary examination.
The special assize court of Paris therefore ordered that the accused, “absent without valid excuse”, be tried by default, as expected by the civil parties, rare on the benches of the courtroom on Monday.
This academic left free in Canada in January 2018 after having initially benefited from a dismissal in this case, one of the longest in French anti-terrorism.
The court could theoretically have decided to issue a new arrest warrant against Hassan Diab, but should have de facto postponed the hearing.
“This trial must take place”, estimated one of the general attorneys, Benjamin Chambre, while rising against “the cowardice” of the accused, his “lack of confidence” and his “great infamy done” to the court of seats.
Hassan Diab’s decision is “humanly audible, humanly sayable, humanly respectable” and is in no way “a sign of any cowardice”, retorted his lawyer, Mr.e William Bourdon.
For the civil parties, after four decades of waiting and judicial reversals, “it’s the end of a very long ordeal”, had affirmed before the opening of the hearing the lawyer of some of them, Me Bernard Cahen.
On October 3, 1980, around 6:35 p.m., the explosion of the bomb placed on a motorcycle near the synagogue in rue Copernic, in the XVIe arrondissement of Paris, had killed four people – a student passing by on a motorbike, a private driver, an Israeli journalist and a building caretaker – and injured 46.
For the first time since the end of the Second World War, the Jewish community of France was the target of a murderous attack.
Never claimed, the attack had been attributed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations (FPLP-OS), a dissident group of the PFLP.
Passport
Information designated in 1999 Hassan Diab as the one who made the explosive device and loaded the motorcycle with the ten kilos of pentrite which exploded in front of the religious building.
In addition to this information, the prosecution points to the resemblance of the former student from Beirut to robot portraits made at the time, the testimony of a couple claiming that he belonged to Palestinian groups in the early 1980s, as well as comparisons between Hassan Diab’s handwriting and that of a hotel form filled out by the man who bought the motorcycle.
These handwriting expertises were fiercely debated during the investigation and should be discussed again at the trial.
The central piece of the prosecution remains the seizure in Rome in 1981 of a passport in the name of Hassan Diab, with entry and exit stamps from Spain, the country from which the commando would have left, on matching dates with the attack.
“He was in Lebanon at the time of the events”, taking his exams at the University of Beirut, “we establish it”, underlined before the trial Me William Bourdon. Former students and the ex-wife of Hassan Diab had corroborated his statements, recalls his defense.
“We hear that on the side of the civil parties, there is a claim to have a culprit at all costs, fed by the judicial authority which led them to understand, wrongly, that […] it was the only “culprit” that we could offer them, “said Me Bourdon.
“This case could have, should have ended at the time of the dismissal order”, an “extremely reasoned” order which had concluded that there was a lack of “sufficiently probative” charges to refer Hassan Diab to an assize court, added the council.
This decision was reversed three years later.
Judged for assassinations, attempted assassinations and aggravated destruction in connection with a terrorist enterprise, the former professor of sociology faces life imprisonment.
The verdict is expected on April 21.