http://www.cjnews.com/TOPScnCJN/index.phpLebanese Canadian linked to 1980 Paris shul bombing By SHELDON KIRSHER, Staff Reporter
Thursday, 18 October 2007
France will likely ask Canada to extradite an unnamed 55-year-old Lebanese Canadian of Palestinian origin suspected in the deadly bombing of the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris 27 years ago, says the chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
“My guess is that France will ask Canada for his extradition,” said Bernie Farber.
But Jean Christophe Fleury, a spokesperson at the French Embassy in Ottawa, said he doesn’t know whether France will, in fact, request his extradition.
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, but we are fully aware of the importance of this case for the Jewish community in Canada,” he said.
On Oct. 3, 1980, four people were killed and 20 wounded when a bomb exploded at the synagogue in central Paris.
Last week, Le Figaro, a Paris daily, reported that French police were trying to amass evidence – DNA samples, fingerprints and handwriting samples – that would link the still unidentified Lebanese Canadian to the crime.
Farber said the suspect lives either in Ottawa or Toronto, but a story in the Globe and Mail said he has been living in Montreal.
Fearing that Le Figaro’s story may jeopardize an ongoing investigation, police in France are furious that the case has been leaked to the media.
“This sort of thing should be kept secret,” Fleury said.
Chris Girouard, a department of justice spokesperson in Ottawa, had no comment beyond saying that he could neither confirm nor deny that France has requested his extradition.
“State-to-state communications are considered confidential,” he said.
If extradition is requested, it would go through the normal extradition process,” he explained.
Asked how long this might take, he said, “The process is case specific.”
Farber, who has called for the man’s prompt extradition to France, warned that deportation proceedings may be lengthy.
“I would hope that Canada will extradite him. This government has taken a tough position on terrorism,” he said in a reference to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government
But until recently, Farber warned, Canada had “a poor record” in extraditing terrorists.
He cited the cases of two Palestinian terrorist suspects living in Canada who have fended off deportation.
The Palestinians in question are Issam Al Yamani and Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad, both of whom were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which was blamed for the Rue Copernic synagogue blast.
In 1970, a Greek court convicted Mohammad for his role in a 1968 attack on an El Al airliner in Athens.
Released after a few months, he immigrated to Canada. In 1988, a Canadian immigration adjudicator ruled that he could be deported because he deliberately lied when applying for permanent resident status and failed to disclose his membership in the PFLP.
Nonetheless, he remains in Canada.
Yamani, who arrived in Canada in 1985, is alleged to have participated in a bombing in the United Arab Emirates in the late 1970s.
After he was granted permanent resident status, he applied for Canadian citizenship, but then became the object of an investigation by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Last year, a deportation order was issued for his removal from Canada, but it has yet to be executed.
The Muslim Canadian Congress describes Al Yamani as a “peace activist” and claims that the deportation order is nothing less than an attempt “to silence and deport Palestinian refugees in Canada.”
The Canadian Civil Liberties Union is also opposed to his deportation.
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