It was 42 years and six months ago precisely, on October 3, 1980. That day, at 6:35 p.m., the synagogue on rue Copernic, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, was packed. “In the middle of the office, we heard a huge explosion then the glass roof collapsed on us, recalls Corinne Adler, who was celebrating her bat mitzvah that day (feminine counterpart of the bar mitzvah) with four other teenagers. I think I immediately understood what an attack was. In the street, just in front of the building, a bomb has just exploded. A biker passing by, the driver of a family present at the office and an Israeli tourist are killed instantly. The concierge of the hotel opposite, seriously injured, will die shortly afterwards. In the synagogue, about forty people are also injured.
But this Monday, when the trial of this anti-Semitic attack finally opens, the box of the accused will, without a shadow of a doubt, be empty. Hassan Diab, a 70-year-old Lebanese-Canadian academic, is referred to the specially composed assize court for murder and attempted murder, suspected of having made the bomb of pentrite, a military explosive, and of having deposited it in front of the building. But after three years of pre-trial detention in France, the man, who has always claimed his innocence, returned to Canada in January 2018. Nothing illegal in this return: a case was dismissed in this case… before to be finally invalidated three years later. Yet another reversal in this oh so winding file.
Who is Alexander Panadriyu?
Back in October 1980. At the time, there were no DNA analyses, let alone video surveillance. But quickly, going up the track of the Suzuki under which the explosive was hidden, the criminal brigade identifies a certain Alexander Panadriyu. This Cypriot bought the vehicle a few days before the attack. In cash and dollars. Stroke of luck: he left the address of his hotel and even filled in – and this will be decisive for the rest of the investigations – an information sheet. The night watchman, like a prostitute who works regularly in the establishment, remembers very well a young man speaking French with a relatively small accent, which they think is “Arabic”. But at the time, the preferred track was that of a “neo-Nazi” attack. A man even claimed it, he will turn out to be a storyteller. As for Alexander Panadriyu, his identity is false. The file is gradually slipping into the limbo of the French judicial system.
In 1999, a dramatic turn of events: an information note arrives on the office of the examining magistrate. This time, she attributes the attack to a dissident terrorist group of the Palestine Liberation Front: the PFLP-OS. Above all, appears the name of Hassan Diab, professor of sociology in Canada, a graduate of the University of Syracuse in the United States and who left Lebanon in 1987. By cross-checking various elements, the investigators learn that the passport of the was discovered in October 1981 in the belongings of a traveler from Lebanon, among other identity papers.
The Lebanese authorities are formal, the document is a real one and the photo affixed to it looks exactly like the composite portrait established shortly after the attack. Another element holds the attention: the passport indicates that its owner went to Spain between September 20 and October 7, 1980, dates surrounding the commission of the attack. However, the intelligence services are convinced: the commando arrived and left via Spain.
Lost passport and handwriting expertise
But once again, the investigation vegetates and it will be necessary to wait until 2007 so that an examining magistrate, Marc Trévidic, plunges back into the file. In particular, he had graphological analyzes carried out between the information sheet found at the hotel and the writing of Hassan Diab, several experts saw a match there. In 2008, he asked Canada for the extradition of the academic. On the other side of the Atlantic, the respondent pleads for a homonym and explains that he lost his passport but was slow to declare him “too busy with his exams”. Above all, he swears that he never belonged to the FPLP-OS or to any political organization. Some testimonies affirm the opposite but no element formally attests to his link with the small group. As for the graphological analyses, they are called into question by counter-expertise.
And that is the whole difficulty of this case: if there is a body of concordant elements against Hassan Diab are they sufficient to refer him to an assize court? The Canadian judge who in 2014 finally accepted his extradition considered that the charges were “weak” but the legal procedure. “This position is unprecedented and reflects the shortcomings of this file,” insists Fabien Goa, researcher at Amnesty International. The organization has been campaigning for years for France to drop the charges against the Lebanese-Canadian. “At each stage, magistrates or independent experts have found flaws. There is a cumulative effect that makes this case unfair,” insists the researcher.
A dismissal finally invalidated
Referred in 2014, Hassan Diab will spend nearly three years in pre-trial detention in France. Until January 2018. The case is experiencing a new twist: the investigating magistrates believe that the charges against him are “not sufficiently convincing and that they come up against too many exculpatory elements”. They therefore decide to dismiss the case. Among the elements that explain this decision: the lingering doubt about his presence in France at the time of the attack. In 2016, after years of keeping silent, his ex-wife claimed he drove her to the airport on September 28, 1980, when the passport holder was already in Europe. The judges consider that this testimony, even if it is questionable, deserves to be taken into account.
The Attorney General immediately appealed. And in 2021, Hassan Diab learns from Canada that he is sent back to the special assize court. “For the civil parties, this whole procedure was an emotional lift, confides Me David Père, lawyer for a victim as well as French Association of Victims of Terrorism (AFVT). With each twist, it revived the wounds and aroused hopes or, on the contrary, disappointments. But what to expect from a trial when the box is empty? Certainly, witnesses and experts will follow one another at the bar to allow the jurors – exclusively magistrates – to form an intimate conviction, but will these three weeks of hearings make it possible to remove the gray areas of the case? Corinne Adler ardently hopes so. “I would like to be able to get an idea, to understand if Hassan Diab has some responsibility. Even 42 years later, we need these answers. The verdict is expected on April 21.