A Canadian-Lebanese national arrested for his alleged role in a 1980 Paris synagogue bombing that killed four appeared in court Wednesday for a second bail hearing. Hassan Diab, 55, was arrested in November in a suburb of Canada's capital at the request of French authorities who want him extradited to stand trial for murder, attempted murder and the destruction of property for his alleged role in the bombing.A judge in December denied him bail pending an extradition hearing, but the decision was quashed by an appeals court because Diab, who does not understand French, could not read prosecution documents from France entered as evidence.
At the new hearing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police terrorism expert Corporal Robert Tran testified Diab had been under sporadic surveillance since January 2008. At his first court appearance, Diab had complained he was being stalked.
Tran said also that he obtained documents from the Royal Bank of Canada that showed Diab had opened several joint accounts with his ex-wife Nawal Copty, after his divorce in 1993. According to the bank, the estranged couple transferred funds into these accounts from their own personal accounts. One of them in Copty's name held $63,000 Canadian dollars Tran said.
According to French case files, Copty was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's special operations team believed to have orchestrated the Copernic Street bombing.
Diab was also identified by French authorities as belonging to the group.
In October 1980, a bomb planted in a motorcycle saddlebag outside the Copernic Street synagogue in Paris's 16th arrondissement killed three Frenchmen and a young Israeli woman, and injured dozens. It was the first fatal attack against the French Jewish community since the Nazi occupation of World War II.
French authorities issued a warrant in November 2007 for Diab's arrest, following a lead from German intelligence, believing he was involved. But Diab has insisted they made a mistake and denied links to extremist groups. His lawyers said it was a case of mistaken identity and repeatedly insisted Diab was not in Paris at the time of the bombing.
Before his arrest, Diab worked as a part-time professor at Canada's Carleton and Ottawa universities. He faces possible life in prison for murder, attempted murder and willful destruction of property, if convicted in a French court.