SWC and BNVCA (National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism) Protest Plantu Cartoon Appearing in Le Monde
SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE-EUROPE Tel: +33(0)1 47 23 76 37 Fax: +33(0)1 47 20 84 01 Mail: csweurope@gmail.com
SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE-EUROPE
Tel.: +33(0)1 47 23 76 37
Fax: +33(0)1 47 20 84 01
Email: csweurope@gmail.com
“Paris – the city of Copernic and so many subsequent acts of terror – will seeDiab take the stand in 2016... May this be the year to bring final closure to families of the victims and survivors. After a waitof 36 years, justice further delayed would be justice denied"
Paris
On 3 October 1980, at 6:35 pm, a bomb exploded outside the Copernic Synagogue inParis, killing four passers-by and injuring 40 worshippers inside the building.
Then French Prime Minister, Raymond Barre, declared that "a bomb set for Jewskilled four innocent Frenchmen". One was Aliza - wife of Israeli film maker, Micha Shagrir - who had arrived to Paris as a weekendguest of journalist, Tamar Golan
Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels,accompanied Aliza the one hundred yards from her hostess' apartment to the corner of Copernic, where a few seconds later she mether death.
Samuels immediately derided the authorities for blaming the extreme right. Heargued that “the attack had all the features of Palestinian + local extreme left terrorism.” In the aftermath of Copernic, andover the following two years, he tabulated 73 such incidents of antisemitic terror, of which 29 in France. “This ended with the summer of 1982 Israeli incursion intosouthern Lebanon, dispersing European terrorists in PLO training camps. Arriving home, their targets shifted to banks andgovernment installations – rather than synagogues – resulting in a
rigorous crackdown,” claimed Samuels.
In 1999, French intelligence obtained evidence pointing to the perpetrators. Theseincluded the name Hassan Diab, a Beirut-born Palestinian member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine– Special Operations (PFLP-SO), alleged to have assembled and detonated thebomb.
Reported evidence, including false passports, hand-writing analysis and testimonyfrom PFLP and other associates, gleaned from European and United States intelligence services, led to the 2008 detention andhouse arrest of Hassan Diab, now a University Professor of Sociology in Ottawa, Canada. There followed two years of house arrest and a campaign of Palestiniansolidarity sympathizers claiming mistaken identity.
Samuels attended the 2010 extradition hearing which degenerated into anti-Israeldemonstrations. The Wiesenthal Centre, for the next four years, campaigned in the French and Canadian media for his transfer toa Paris court.
After serial appeals, Diab arrived in France where, in February 2015, he wascharged with “murders, attempted murders; voluntary destruction of the property of others by an explosive or incendiary substance inan organized group; crimes related to individual or collective deeds aiming to gravely disturb public order by intimidation or terror.”
His defence counsel submitted two demands for annulment of the case, on groundsthat the evidence lacked credibility. Both were rejected by the Paris Court of Appeals last week, on 17 December.
The Centre has addressed thanks to Advocates David Père and Bernard Cahen,applauding all the victims' legal counsel and the Appeals Court ruling, which will now permit this important trial to moveforward.
“Paris – the city of Copernic and so many subsequent acts of terror – will seeDiab take the stand in 2016... May this be the year to bring final closure to families of the victims and survivors. After a waitof 36 years, justice further delayed would be justice denied,” concluded Samuels.
For further information please contact Shimon Samuels 00 33 609 770 158, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter,or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in theUnited States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).