Hassan Diab - The Case

The Case

Based on information from intelligence agencies of Germany obtained from former members of the group, French authorities allege that Diab was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the group blamed for the bombing. Evidence unsealed as part of the extradition case, in April 2009, included two police sketches made sometime after the bombing. Samples of Diab's handwriting, while a student at Syracuse University years later, were subject to handwriting analysis. The sample of Diab's Syracuse handwriting was compared to the writing on a Paris hotel registration card filled out under the alias Alexandre Panadriyu. One French expert stated that the handwriting was definitely Diab's, though it appeared efforts had been made to change it. Another French expert said Diab could have written the registration card.

In October, 2009, Diab’s lawyer submitted to the Canadian court several reports produced by experts in Canada, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. The lawyer informed the court that intelligence experts were prepared to explain the difference between evidence and intelligence and its “inherent secrecy and non-disclosure.” Moreover, handwriting experts, including a top British expert, characterized the evidence tendered by French authorities as “demonstrably false.” The Crown, on behalf of France, retracted the evidentiary nature of their original handwriting experts and asked the court for more time in order to get another opinion.

The reports were the subject of an evidentiary hearing in December 2009. At the end of the hearing, the judge decided that the defence was permitted to file reports from all of their four handwriting experts, and could call any two of these experts to testify at the extradition hearing. The Crown would be allowed to cross-examine all four of the defence handwriting experts if he would so choose. The defence called University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach to testify as an expert on the issue of intelligence as evidence at the extradition hearing; he testified as to the unreliability of using intelligence as evidence on November 24 and 25, 2009 in Ottawa.