The Ottawa university professor accused of killing four people in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue will not be returning to work.
Hassan Diab’s lawyer told a court on Monday that his client had expected to resume teaching a sociology class this week at Carleton University.
But in a terse statement released yesterday afternoon, the university said that a full-time faculty member “will immediately replace the current instructor, Hassan Diab.”
The move was being made to provide students “with a stable, productive academic environment that is conducive to learning,” the statement said. It said there would be no further comment on the matter by the university. Mr. Diab, 55, had been given a contract to teach two days a week until the middle of August.
B’nai Brith, the influential Jewish group, had harshly criticized the university for hiring Mr. Diab. The Toronto-based national office of B’nai Brith issued a statement condemning Carlton’s actions, while an Ottawa-based member of the group telephoned the university directly to complain.
“The university did the right thing,” B’nai Brith’s executive vice-president, Frank Dimant, said yesterday of Carleton’s about-face in not allowing Mr. Diab to teach.
Mr. Dimant said it was “inconceivable” that Mr. Diab, who is awaiting a Jan. 4, 2010, extradition hearing under strict bail conditions -- including wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet -- would be allowed to be in direct contact with young people.
Mr. Diab, 55, was born in Lebanon, but obtained Canadian citizenship in 1993. He has led a fairly nomadic life, living in six different countries over 12 years. He has left behind a string of marriages, divorces and common-law relationships and has fathered two children over the past two decades.
In 2006, Mr. Diab married Rania Tfaily in a religious ceremony that was not legally binding. Ms. Tfaily is a professor in Carleton’s sociology and anthropology department, while Mr. Diab has taught at the University of Ottawa and, more recently, at Carleton.
Although the couple was not living together at the time of Mr. Diab’s arrest in November Mr. Diab must live with Ms. Tfaily as one of his many bail conditions. (She has told the court that, although she doesn’t love him, she believes he is innocent.)
Mr. Diab is accused of the 1980 bombing of the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris. In addition to killing four people, the bombing injured scores of others and led to the fortification of Jewish sites around the world. No one claimed responsibility, but the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations (PFLP-SO) was later blamed.
Mr. Diab was arrested on Nov. 13, 2008, by the RCMP at the request of French authorities who allege Mr. Diab resembles police sketches of the synagogue bomber; his handwriting matches that of the bomber; he has been identified by intelligence sources and former friends as having been a member of the PFLP; and his Lebanese passport, which he reported stolen, was used to get into France at about the time of the 1980 bombing.
Mr. Diab and Ms. Tfaily were in court in Ottawa on Monday to determine what items seized during RCMP raids of Ms. Tfaily’s condo and her Carleton office can be sent to French officials as potential evidence in their case against Mr. Diab.
Mr. Diab and Ms. Tfaily intend to argue that the RCMP searches were unlawful and the seized items should not be sent to France.
Editorial, Page A14
