Event organized in Ottawa in support of Hassan Diab before his trial in Paris
Hassan Diab will be tried in Paris starting April 3.
One hundred people gathered in Ottawa on Sunday to support Hassan Diab, a lecturer from Carleton University who will be tried in France in eight days.
As he maintains his innocence, Hassan Diab is suspected of having orchestrated a bomb attack in Paris in 1980.
Now 69 years old, this Canadian of Lebanese origin finds himself at the heart of a veritable legal saga that has lasted more than 40 years and which has seen many twists and turns.
A hundred people gathered in a building at Carleton University on Sunday.
Mr. Diab was present at the rally organized by his supporters in a building belonging to Carleton University on Sunday. He took the opportunity to thank all the people who support him from almost all over the world.
Mr. Diab called his situation an endless nightmare, a fiasco too, a Kafkaesque situation, which even Kafka would not have dared to write about.
His support committee in Ottawa, which includes students from Carleton University, is calling for the charges against him to be dropped. Speaking of a travesty of justice, he also invites Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to publicly pledge to oppose a second extradition of Mr. Diab.
Mr. Diab's support committee in Ottawa, which includes students from Carleton University, is calling for the charges against him to be dropped.
A student of political science and sociology and a member of a course that works with Hassan Diab's support committee, Nicholas Renaud believes the federal government must act.
We sent some emails to the advisers in Ottawa as well as to the Prime Minister […] to [cancel] the act of extradition or simply to allow Hassan Diab not to be extradited until all the evidence points in the direction where he would be the culprit.
Present at this public activity, the former director of Amnesty International Canada, Roger Clark, admits that he is worried about the outcome of the upcoming trial since abuses of process have, according to him, taken place in France in other trials.
The evidence that was presented [at the said trials] was either overlooked, overlooked, sidelined, or completely overturned.
< p class="e-p">Claiming for all these years that he was not present in Paris during the bomb attack, Mr. Diab was first extradited to France in November 2014. He was then imprisoned for almost three years before to be finally released, for lack of evidence.
However, the Court of Appeal, then of Cassation, ordered in 2021 that he appear again in court. His trial will begin in Paris on April 3, although Mr. Diab will not be there.
There is certainly a personal risk, Mr. Clark believes, explaining that Mr. Diab's lawyers have made it clear that he is out of the question for him to attend his trial.
Roger Clark is the former director of Amnesty International Canada and a member of the Hassan Diab support group.
Speaking of rampant Islamophobia in France, the former director of Amnesty International Canada believes there is a political and social will to find a culprit for any terrorist attack.
While expressing sympathy for the victims of that bomb attack in 1980, he says bringing Mr. Diab back to the barre without conclusive evidence of his guilt will do them no justice.
With information from Fiona Collienne
