Canada must put a stop to injustice in the Hassan Diab case, once and for all*

At every step of a Kafkaesque 15-year journey through the Canadian and French legal systems Hassan Diab and his family have needed to believe that justice would ultimately prevail.  Sadly, despite one rare shining moment when two French judges ruled in his favour in 2018, that hope has been shattered. 

Today’s decision from the French Special Assize Court finding Dr. Diab guilty of a horrific 1980 Parisian synagogue bombing, despite overwhelming evidence that he was not in France at the time, is the latest surreal instalment. If this was a movie, scriptwriters would dismiss the plot as too far-fetched. But this is real life, and what is at stake for Hassan Diab is his freedom, perhaps for the rest of his life.

The one person who can rescue Hassan Diab from this maze of injustice is federal Minister of Justice David Lametti. He must make it clear to the French government that Canada will no longer be complicit in this travesty and under no circumstances will any further extradition request be granted.

The devastating terrorist bombing at the Rue Copernic synagogue on October 3, 1980 killed four people and injured 46 others. It is an indictment of justice that it has remained unsolved for so long. But justice is not served by scapegoating an innocent man.

Hassan Diab, born in Lebanon and with a PhD in sociology from New York’s Syracuse University, has been a Canadian citizen for 30 years. Out of the blue, he was arrested on a French extradition warrant in 2008, charged with the bombing. He asserted his innocence and thus began a six-year legal struggle in Canadian courts.

The Ontario judge who ruled in 2011 that the extradition should go ahead concluded that “the case presented by the Republic of France against Mr. Diab is a weak case; the prospects of conviction in the context of a fair trial, seem unlikely.” But the bar in Canadian extradition law is stunningly low. The judge decided he had no choice but to proceed.

Following his extradition in 2014, Dr. Diab was held in a maximum-security prison for over three years, almost entirely in solitary confinement. French authorities were not ready to head to trial, despite assurances to the contrary during the extradition. As French judges investigated further, the already weak case essentially collapsed. Handwriting analysis was further discredited, and judges corroborated alibi evidence that Dr. Diab was writing university exams in Lebanon at the time of the attack. The case was dropped, and he returned to his family in Ottawa in 2018.

But French prosecutors appealed, and on grounds that defy understanding, appeal courts ruled a trial should be held. French authorities did not seek his extradition again and Dr. Diab had no interest in returning to France on his own accord. So the three week trial was held in absentia. Furthermore, there is no transcript of the proceedings, making it impossible to examine what has transpired.

The evidence is as weak today as when the case was withdrawn in 2018.  Handwriting experts who were dropped by the French government in the extradition process because they had relied on comparative samples that were not even Dr. Diab’s, are back in court. A handwriting report discredited earlier by French court-appointed experts as completely unreliable, was reintroduced. Meanwhile, defence handwriting experts were rushed along during their testimony. 

Several French journalists testified, offering little more than personal opinions. One said he became convinced of Hassan Diab’s guilt because he had remained “calm” when he first confronted him. A number of lay witnesses, again with no relevant evidence, also testified, asked simply for their opinions as to whether or not Dr. Diab carried out the bombing.

Unsourced, unverified, anonymous intelligence information, abandoned by French authorities during the extradition, was also back and cannot be challenged.

The alibi evidence that Hassan Diab was in Lebanon, not France, at the time of the bombing? Dismissively pushed aside.

Evidence and rules of criminal procedure that would never be allowed in a Canadian courtroom have carried the day. There is little doubt that the resulting conviction is profoundly, scandalously unsound.

And now, Canada awaits an anticipated second extradition request from France. Minister Lametti could send that request to court and yet another protracted extradition process would unfold. The torment for Dr. Diab and his family would be unbearable.

In Canadian law that decision -- to proceed with the extradition or not -- is discretionary, entirely in the Minister’s hands. Discretion should, surely, always serve justice. Justice means Canada must say no to France. 

*Originally published as an opinion piece, with Professor Robert Currie, in the Globe and Mail, on April 21, 2023