The trial for the attack on the Rue Copernicus synagogue in Paris, which killed four people and injured dozens on October 3, 1980, began this morning, 43 years after the events and in the absence of the sole accused.

Hassan Diab, a 69-year-old Lebanese-Canadian who initially maintained his innocence, did not appear at the beginning of the hearing, as he had already informed the court during his previous examination.

The special criminal court in Paris consequently ordered the defendant, who is “unjustifiably absent”, to be tried in absentia, which civil defense lawyers had expected.

This university student had left for Canada in January 2018, after it had initially been decided not to prosecute him in the context of this case.

The court could theoretically decide to issue a new arrest warrant against Hassan Diab, but in this case it would de facto have to postpone the hearing.

“This trial must take place,” said one of the lawyers in the civil action, Benjamin Sabre, at the same time criticizing the “cowardice” of the defendant, his “lack of trust” and the “great disgrace he brought” to the criminal court. .

Hassan Diab’s decision is “humanly understandable, humanly respectable” and in no way constitutes “an indication of any cowardice,” replied his lawyer, William Bourdon.

For the civil action, after four decades of waiting and judicial reversals, “it is the end of a very big Golgotha”, the lawyer of some of the victims, Bernard Caen, had emphasized before the start of the hearing.

On October 3, 1980, at around 6:35 p.m., the explosion of a bomb planted on a motorcycle next to the rue Copernicus synagogue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris had killed four people – a student passing by on a motorcycle, a personal driver, an Israeli journalist and an apartment building guard – while 46 others were injured.

For the first time since World War II, France’s Jewish community was the target of a murderous attack.

That attack, for which no responsibility was ever claimed, was attributed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – Special Operations (PFLP-SO), a splinter faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

According to information gathered in 1999, Hassan Diab was the one who built the explosive device and loaded the motorcycle with the ten kilograms of pentaerythritol (PETN) that exploded in front of the place of religious worship.

In addition to this information, the prosecution highlights the similarity of the former student from Beirut to the portraits of the suspect that were taken at the time based on testimonies, the testimony of a couple who claimed to have belonged to the Palestinian organizations in his early years 1980, as well as comparisons between Hassan Diab’s handwriting and the handwriting on a hotel record filled out by the man who bought the motorcycle.

The centerpiece of the charge remains the seizure in Rome in 1981 of a passport in the name of Hassan Diab, with entry and exit stamps from Spain, the country from which the attack group allegedly departed, on dates coinciding with the attack .

“He was in Lebanon at the time of the events,” he was taking exams at the University of Beirut, “we prove it,” lawyer William Bourdon emphasized before the trial. Former students and Hassan Diab’s ex-wife had confirmed his statements, the defense recalls.

“We hear from the prosecution side that there was a demand to have a guilty party at all costs, which was fueled by the judicial authority who let them think, unfairly, that he was the only ‘guilty’ that we could offer them,” Bourdon stated.

Hassan Diab, a former sociology professor, is on trial for murder, attempted murder, serious damage in connection with a terrorist operation and faces a life sentence.

The verdict is expected on April 21.`