France is demanding Canada extradite a convicted terrorist, Lebanon-born Hassan Diab, who is now a Carleton University professor of social justice, to stand trial for a 1980 bombing in France.
Diab is associated with Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Canada officially lists as a terrorist entity.
Diab was reportedly tried and convicted in French courts for his involvement with a 1980 terrorist attack on a Jewish synagogue in Paris that killed four people and injured more than 40 others. He escaped to Canada and began a career in academia.
Diab, 60, now teaches a course called Social Justice in Action, where his website, Justice for Hassan Diab, is listed as required reading.
Meanwhile, French courts tried him “in absentia,” and he was found guilty.
Liberal-appointed Sen. Marilou McPhedran recently broached Diab’s case in the Canadian senate, where she conceded Diab was “sentenced to life in prison” after a French trial. She said he is facing an extradition request, of which the two countries have a treaty.
She said it’s “appalling” to treat the terrorist like a criminal, and said 4,000 Canadians have signed a letter calling on the Canadian government “to deny any future extradition request and protect Dr. Diab’s rights.”
The Trudeau Liberals have not said whether it will comply with France’s extradition request, however the prime minister in 2011, as the senator points out, said “what happened to Dr. Diab never should have happened.”
“The French and Canadian abuses in this shameful case have been well documented by legal scholars, the Department of Justice review, and the House of Commons Justice Committee. All have identified an unjust lack of transparency and disclosure in the current Extradition Act,” said McPhedran at committee.
Jewish human rights group B’nai Brith has condemned Carleton for allowing Diab to teach.
“Despite being handed a life sentence by a French court, Hassan Diab continues to live freely in Canada, while Carleton University, unconscionably, continues to allow him the privilege of teaching at a Canadian Institution,” wrote B’nai Brith on social media.
“As Canadians, we cannot stand by while a convicted terrorist, affiliated with a listed terrorist group, teaches on our campuses.”
An “independent review” of Diab’s extradition by the Department of Justice states Diab actually has “no criminal record.”
Upon his first extradition to France in 2014, he faced “multiple charges of murder, attempted murder and destruction of property,” states the review. He served three years in remand without a trial before he was released and went back to Canada in 2018, “with the assistance of Global Affairs Canada," reads the federal statement.
The Jerusalem Post also reported Diab was “convicted by a French court over his involvement” in the 1980 Paris bombing, and “unanimously ruled Diab was guilty” and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The son of Aliza Shragir, one of the bombing victims who is now an Israeli television commentator, called the university “outrageous” for offering Diab a teaching position.
"It is outrageous that an academic institution that is supposed to promote values of equality and justice decided to employ a cold-blooded murderer, who was unanimously convicted in a court in France,” he said, per the Jerusalem Post.
“Apparently carrying out a murderous terrorist act against a Jewish target does not go against the values of Carleton University.”
Israeli consul general in Toronto Idit Shamir called Carleton’s decision "unconscionable."
"Hassan Diab, the terrorist who murdered my friend’s mother, Aliza Shagrir, before his eyes in the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing still lectures at Canada’s Carleton University,” she wrote on social media.
Carleton hasn't commented on the issue.