French Jewish organisations welcomed the arrest in Canada of a man for his alleged role in a 1980 bombing outside the Copernic Street synagogue in Paris that killed four people.

Canadian officials said Thursday that Hassan Diab, a Canadian-Lebanese national of Palestinian origin, was arrested in a suburb of Ottawa. “I can confirm that we’ve arrested Hassan Diab,” justice department spokesman Christian Girouard said.
  
Earlier, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said a suspect in the bombing was detained in Gatineau, Quebec, at the request of French authorities who had been searching for Diab for years.
  
“The indvidual was wanted in France in connection with the bombing at a Paris synagogue,” Corporal Jean Hainey told AFP. “The RCMP was providing assistance as required under the mutual assistance treaty.”
  
A judicial source in Paris had earlier announced the arrest in Canada of a suspect in the case.
 
In October 1980 a bomb planted in a motor-cycle saddle-bag outside the synagogue on the Copernic Street synagogue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris killed three French men and a young Israeli woman.
  
It was the first fatal attack against the French Jewish community since the Nazi occupation of World War II.
 
“Better late than never after 30 years of silence,” commented Rabbi Michael Williams, who officiated at the synagogue when the bomb exploded.

CRIF, the umbrella body of Jewish organizations in France, welcomed the arrest and thanked the police, investigators and judges who continued their searchs over the years.
 
The Jewish group expressed the hope that the culprits of other anti-Jewish attacks, including the bomb and gun attack against the Goldenberg restaurant in Rue des Rosiers in August 1982, which killed six and injured twenty, would also be arrested.
 
Sammy Ghozlan, president of the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA) stressed that the arrest in Canada “puts an end to all rumors because at the time one spoke of an extreme-right attack.”
 
French authorities issued a warrant in November 2007 for Diab’s arrest, following a lead from German intelligence. But Diab claimed at the time he was a victim of mistaken identity and denied any links to extremist organisations.
  
His attorney Rene Duval had threatened to sue French authorities for slandering his client, who teaches at the University of Ottawa, and for disrupting his life with wild accusations.
  
Duval said in a telephone interview with AFP that Diab had been studying in Beirut, Lebanon at the time of the Copernic bombing, and that he later moved to the United States to pursue a doctorate.

(Source: EJP)

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