Outrage as Canadian university employed convicted terrorist

A Canadian university is facing outrage for employing a convicted terrorist as a teacher. Ottawa’s Carleton University hired 70-year-old Hassan Diab to teach the third-year course Social Justice in Action. Last year, Diab was convicted in absentia by a French court in connection with the 1980 bombing of the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris. The explosion, which killed four people and injured 46, was the first deadly attack against French Jews since World War II.

It also sparked the beginning of a new era of French antisemitic violence by Palestinian and Islamist terrorists. Diab (pictured) fled to Canada after being arrested in 2008 and was involved in a six-year legal battle to avoid being extradited to France. He was eventually extradited in 2014, and after years in prison he was placed on house arrest, The Jerusalem Post reported. He reportedly fled to Canada that same day.

Diab’s employment sparked outrage, the Jewish service organization B’nai B’rith sent a letter to the university demanding his dismissal. Addressed to Carleton University president Jerry Tomberlin, the letter said that Diab’s hiring ‘raises significant questions regarding Carleton’s dedication to the safety and well-being of its students and staff.’ B’nai B’rith Canada posted a statement saying that ‘despite being handed a life sentence by a French court, Hassan Diab continues to live freely in Canada, while Carleton University, unconscionably, continues to allow him the privilege of teaching at a Canadian Institution.’

The organization added that the university ignored its formal request to terminate Diab’s position, calling the institution’s silence ‘deeply disturbing’. ‘Its decision to continue to employ Diab not only presents a danger to the well-being of its students, but it is an insult to the memory of the innocent victims of his heinous crimes and an affront to all Canadians who value law and order,’ they wrote. The sons of Israeli TV presenter Aliza Shragir (pictured), one of the victims of the bombing, said that employing Diab as a lecturer was ‘outrageous,’ the Jerusalem Post reported.

‘It is outrageous that an academic institution that is supposed to promote values of equality and justice decided to employ a cold-blooded murderer, who was unanimously convicted in a court in France,’ the sons said in a statement. ‘Apparently carrying out a murderous terrorist act against a Jewish target does not go against the values of Carleton University.’ Israel’s Consul General in Toronto, Idit Shamir, called Diab’s employment ‘unconscionable’ in a social media post, calling it a ‘failure of justice’ that was ‘spitting on the graves of Jewish victims.’

In July 2009, Diab was hired to teach a course in introductory sociology at Carleton. Soon after, Diab’s contract was cancelled and university officials said that he had been replaced with someone else ‘in the interest of providing students with a stable, productive academic environment that is conducive to learning.’ Today, Carleton’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology stands firmly with Diab. On its website, it stated that Diab had been ‘unjustly accused’ and had previously facilitated events allowing him to tell his version of the story.

A note on its website reading ‘support for Hassan Diab’ links to an official statement from the department calling on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Minister of Justice David Lametti to ‘use their discretionary powers to declare that Dr Hassan Diab will not be extradited in response to an extradition request from France.’ Previous rallies have been organized by the department demanding that the Canadian government refuse to extradite Diab, including a protest outside the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights monument in 2022, the Jerusalem Post reported. In 2020, Diab and his family sued the Canadian Government for $90 million over the role it played in his extradition, claiming ‘intentional infliction of emotional distress’ and ‘malicious prosecution’. According to the Justice for Hassan Diab website, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association urged the Minister of Justice, Arif Virani, to reject the second extradition of Diab.

The website states that Diab was wrongfully extradited from Canada to France in 2014 for his involvement in the bombing. It also claims Diab spent three years in a French prison ‘before investigative judges determined that there no evidence linking him to the crime and ordered his immediate and unconditional release.’ The course that Diab is employed to teach, Social Justice of Action, consists mostly of Diab reiterating his innocence. ‘The course puts central emphasis on miscarriages of justice in the context of Canadian extradition law, with close examination of a high-profile extradition case that highlights pertinent issues,’ The National Post reported. Diab’s lawyers have long maintained that he was in Lebanon at the time of the attacks and that his was a case of mistaken identity. After four pieces of evidence were determined to not be substantial enough for a trial, his case was reopened in 2021 by the French Supreme Court after he had already been back in Canada.

The pieces of evidence consisted of his passport showing him entering and exiting Europe just before and just after the bombings. French authorities also had testimony from friends alleging that Diab was connected the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He also is said to have matched a description of the figure who planted the bomb, and finally handwriting analysts determined they found similarities between Diab’s and that of the fictional hotel registration card. A report in 2021 from the Trudeau government concluded that Diab had not been treated differently than any other Canadian but acknowledged ‘discomfort’ of the extradition process. ‘He was legally extradited having been afforded all appropriate procedural protections,’ it read. ‘The fact he was not convicted in France does not render the extradition process flawed.’

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