Canadian demands public inquiry after being extradited to France

An Ottawa professor embroiled in a decades-old terrorism case, who languished in a French prison after being extradited by the Canadian government, is finally free and speaking out against the “lousy” system that has taken 10 years of his life.

Hassan Diab, a former Carleton University professor, is home with his wife and kids in Ottawa, days after France dropped terrorism charges against him due to a lack of evidence.

“I’m glad I’m back to my home and family in Canada,” Diab told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday morning. “I’m beyond thrilled to see my wife and children and to finally be able to hug them outside the confines of a prison cell.”

His case has raised questions about the threshold of evidence required by Canada to send a citizen to face another nation’s criminal justice system, with many experts calling it far too low.

Diab, who French prosecutors linked to a 1980 bombing outside of a Paris synagogue that killed four people and injured dozens, has always maintained his innocence and said he was studying in Lebanon at the time of the attack. French investigative judges ruled last week that the case against him was “groundless,” paving the way for his return to Canada.

'LEGAL LIMBO'

The evidence against Diab included a sketch made from descriptions of the suspect that they said resembled him, entry and exit stamps from Spain — where authorities believed the bomber had fled to, on his passport — as well as a handwriting analysis that was countered by experts brought in by Diab’s own lawyers.

“We are now in the odd legal limbo of having an appeal pending in France,” said his lawyer Donald Bayne. “It is not over but we would like to hope and believe that it really is over. I know from talking with the French lawyers that this is unprecedented in France.”

Diab spent three years and two months in solitary confinement, awaiting trial. Prior to that, he was under house arrest for six years, forced to wear a GPS ankle bracelet and pay its cost of $2000 per month. Now he’s on a mission to change the law that allowed him to be extradited in the first place even though there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him in a Canadian court.

“My mission in life is to get rid of the existing, lousy extradition law, and as much as possible, to help victims of the miscarriage of justice as much as other people helped me,” Diab said.

'KAFKAESQUE'

“The secretive, arbitrary cruel power of the state kept him locked up,” Alex Neve of Amnesty International told reporters on Wednesday, describing the entire situation as “the very definition of the word Kafkaesque.”

In 2011, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger said it was unlikely Diab would be convicted in a Canadian criminal court. But because the threshold for proof of guilt is much lower for extradition than a Canadian criminal conviction, Maranager said he was compelled to send Diab to France.

"There's no sworn evidence [required for extradition]. A foreign official need only sign a piece of paper that makes allegations against a Canadian," Bayne told reporters.

"How do you defend against that?"

'INSTITUTIONAL MISTAKE'

Bessa Whitmore of the group Justice for Hassan Diab is demanding a public inquiry into the case, and a parliamentary review of Canada’s extradition policies.

Diab was extradited before France authorities were even ready to go to trial with his case, Bayne said, adding that French judges eventually made the right decision by letting him go.

“We’re enormously grateful to the French investigative judges and their integrity, hard work, [and] fidelity to justice who ruled that there was no reliable evidence even to justify putting Dr. Diab on trial,” said Don Bayne. “Not not enough to convict him — not enough to even justify a trial. That’s important and raises a perplexing question for Canada and Canadians.”

While Diab is entitled to compensation from France, where people who are released without trial are reimbursed for their legal fees and every day spent in prison, he doesn’t want the money, he said. He also said he doesn’t want a single penny from the Canadian government.

“The mistake was an institutional mistake. It wasn’t a person who made the mistake. The wrong thing is in the structure of the institutions here. We can remedy the things by changing this,” he said.