The Ottawa university professor arrested this week in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue is a devoted teacher who is shocked by the charges he currently faces, his lawyer said Saturday.
Hassan Diab, 54, is wanted in France on multiple counts of murder, attempted murder and wilful destruction of property by an organized group after a bombing outside a Paris synagogue killed four in October 1980. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Special Operations, was blamed for the attack.
Rene Duval, Diab’s lawyer, said his client has been in a state of shock since RCMP officers showed up at the door of his Gatineau home on Thursday with an arrest warrant.
“When you’ve never had any problems with the law and all of a sudden to be handcuffed and foot-chained and driven to RCMP headquarters and then to court, it’s distressing,” Mr. Duval said from his home in Trois-Rivieres, Que.
Mr. Diab appeared in Ottawa court Friday. He is being held in the segregation unit of the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre until his bail hearing Thursday.
Mr. Duval said he speaks to his client several times a day by phone, and will sit down with him sometime this week for a long, face-to-face meeting.
“We will be discussing the evidence we have been provided, but I cannot go further than that,” he said.
A publication ban imposed Thursday and the sealing of the charges under the Extradition Act mean the public is not allowed to know details of the French government’s case, or any evidence that will be presented at the bail hearing.
Mr. Duval would not release the name of Mr. Diab’s wife, but said she visited her husband at the detention centre Saturday. He is in regular contact with her and said she was “under an awful lot of stress.”
Before his arrest, Mr. Diab claimed he was often followed by people his lawyer later speculated were French officers operating in Canada. The incidents -- and the licence-plate numbers of the cars used by the people who were following him -- were reported to Ottawa police, but according to Mr. Duval, nothing ever came of the police investigations.
“This has been a real aggravation for my client,” he said. “He’s a law-abiding citizen.”
Mr. Duval said the situation affected Mr. Diab’s relationship with his wife, and forced him to change the route he took to get to work. He added there was also an attempt to get into Mr. Diab’s apartment.
Mr. Diab teaches part-time at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. His work keeps him busy full-time, and he’s a devoted teacher who has the support of his students and the universities, Duval said.
“This is a gentleman who is a very professional person and, of course, everyone is surprised by this thing that happened. You will have a hard time finding someone who will say something negative about him.”
But both schools have been tight-lipped since the professor’s arrest, and Leslie Laczko, chairman of the sociology and anthropology department where Mr. Diab was teaching a course this term, refused to comment.
Mr. Diab is listed as a contract instructor in the department of sociology and anthropology on the Carleton University website.
Mr. Duval said he has experience with cases like this one. He is currently representing Said Namouh, a Montreal man accused of assisting a terrorist organization and conspiring with Austrians to commit a terrorist act. The case goes to trial in February.
