Episode 4: The Extradition

Summary

Summary of "Episode 4: The Extradition" | The Copernic Affair | Canadaland Investigates

Release Date: February 5, 2025

Introduction and Background

"The Copernic Affair" is a compelling series by Canadaland Investigates that delves into the harrowing case of Hassan Diab, a Lebanese Canadian sociology professor accused of orchestrating a 1980 bomb attack on the Copernic Synagogue in Paris. Episode 4, titled "The Extradition," focuses on the intense legal battle surrounding Diab's extradition from Canada to France, exploring the intricate web of evidence, legal maneuvers, and community responses that define this extraordinary story.

Hassan Diab's Arrest and Initial Reactions

In November 2008, Hassan Diab's seemingly tranquil life in Ottawa was shattered when a SWAT team raided his home, arresting him on charges related to the synagogue bombing. Diab recounts the abruptness of the event:

"On November 13, in the early morning, I was getting ready. Boom, screaming and yelling." [00:43]

Initially, Diab believed the accusations would soon dissipate. However, the arrest rekindled dormant fears within the Jewish community, particularly among leaders like Bernie Farber, a prominent advocate against anti-Semitism in Canada.

The Extradition Hearings in Canada

By November 2009, hearings to extradite Diab from Canada to France commenced in downtown Ottawa, drawing significant media attention. The primary legal question was not Diab's guilt but whether the French case against him was sufficiently credible to warrant extradition under the Canada-France extradition treaty.

"The only thing to be decided was whether the French case was credible, whether there was enough evidence to extradite him to France." [05:07]

Legal Arguments and Evidence Presented

French authorities presented a dossier spanning decades, which included:

1. Passport Evidence: Diab's passport was found in possession of a PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) member in Rome, containing entry and exit stamps from Europe around the time of the attack. French lawyers argued this implicated Diab.

2. Witness Testimonies: A witness from the 1970s testified about Diab's alleged association with a militant group.

3. Composite Sketches: Eyewitnesses from the 1980 attack provided composite sketches that French investigators claimed resembled Diab.

4. Intelligence Reports: Documents from 1999 listed Diab as a suspect in the bombing.

5. Handwriting Analysis: French experts compared Diab's handwriting to samples from the bomber's hotel registration card, asserting a match.

Hassan Diab’s lawyer, Don Bain, systematically dismantled each piece of evidence:

• Intelligence Reports: Bain highlighted inconsistencies and errors in the reports, including incorrect attack dates and mismatched personal details.

  "Is this a human source? Is this just something some analysts made up? We have no idea." [11:24]

• Composite Sketches: He pointed out the varying descriptions from witnesses, making the sketches unreliable.

• Passport Evidence: Bain argued that Diab had lost his passport under unclear circumstances, suggesting it fell into the wrong hands.

• Handwriting Analysis: Independent experts, including John Osborne, criticized the French handwriting analysis as "totally unreliable" and "fatally biased."

  "You can't possibly identify anybody's handwriting from that limited sample of block printing." [14:21]

Support and Opposition

As the extradition hearings progressed, a grassroots support group emerged, comprising mostly senior women deeply invested in Diab's innocence. Members like Maeve McMahon and Jenny Hornesty expressed unwavering belief in Diab's integrity:

"He hates extremism in all its forms. He doesn't care who's being extreme." [21:12]

Prominent community leaders, including Bernie Farber, initially supported the extradition based on the evidence but later became convinced of Diab's innocence after witnessing inconsistencies in the case. Farber and political science professor Mira Sukharov co-authored an opinion piece advocating for Diab's freedom, signifying a pivotal shift in community sentiment.

The Supreme Court Decision and Extradition Outcome

After a protracted legal struggle spanning six years, the extradition hearings concluded in June 2011. Despite significant doubts about the strength of the French case, the Ontario Superior Court ultimately ruled in favor of extradition, citing the convoluted nature of the evidence, particularly the handwriting analysis:

"It was a weak case, replete with seemingly disconnected information." [28:54]

Diab and his legal team appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, seeking to overturn the decision. However, on November 13, 2014, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, sealing Diab's fate:

"The Supreme Court will not hear this." [30:42]

Diab was subsequently extradited to France, leaving his family without the opportunity for a final goodbyes.

Aftermath and Impact

Diab's extradition marked a tragic culmination for his supporters, who had tirelessly worked to prevent what they viewed as an unjust legal process. The community's efforts highlighted significant flaws in the extradition treaty and raised questions about the reliability of international evidence standards.

For Diab, the experience left enduring scars, grappling with feelings of betrayal and responsibility:

"I thought, okay, now the judge is going to make things right because that's what judges are supposed to do." [28:42]

The case underscored the complexities of international law, the challenges of safeguarding individual rights against geopolitical pressures, and the profound impact such legal battles can have on personal lives and community trust.

Conclusion

Episode 4: "The Extradition" of "The Copernic Affair" offers a meticulous examination of Hassan Diab's legal ordeal, emphasizing the intricate interplay between evidence, legal advocacy, and community activism. Through detailed narrative and poignant testimonies, Canadaland Investigates presents a thought-provoking exploration of justice, prejudice, and the profound human costs embedded within international legal disputes.

Transcript

[Hassan Diab]

Canadaland. Funded by you.

[Dana Balut]

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[Noah Michaelson]

And I'm Noah Michaelson, also from HuffPost.

[Dana Balut]

And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong?

[Hassan Diab]

A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying.

[Dana Balut]

To get our lives right.

[Noah Michaelson]

Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right. And we're talking, like, legit, credible experts, doctors, PhDs all around, superheroes from HuffPost and Acast Studios. Check out Am I Doing It Wrong? Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Balut]

Last time on the Copernic Affair. After decades at a standstill, a French judge brought the Copernic synagogue investigation back to life and identified a suspect. So can you introduce yourself? Oh, Hassan Diab, a Lebanese Canadian sociology professor living a quiet life in Ottawa.

[Hassan Diab]

It was like one of the biggest.

[Noah Michaelson]

Shocks in my life.

[Dana Balut]

Hassan Diab thought all of this would just go away. But it didn't. And one morning in the fall of 2008, a SWAT team arrived at his door.

[Hassan Diab]

And on November 13, in the early morning, I was getting ready.

[Noah Michaelson]

I finished my cup of coffee and.

[Hassan Diab]

Boom, screaming and yelling.

[Noah Michaelson]

And they dragged me outside with handcuffs.

[Dana Balut]

I'm Dana Balut. Hi, I'm Alex Atak from Canadalands. This is the Copernic Affair.

[Hassan Diab]

The Copernic Synagogue was one of the most famous synagogues in all of Europe. It stood as a back of Judaism, if I could put it that way. And so the targeting of a symbol of our faith, it was a shocking, brutal attack. Our history is such that people, especially in the latter half of the 20th century, wanted to obliterate us from the face of the earth. And they almost succeeded. And so when synagogues are bombed, there is a huge dark cloud that hovers over our community.

[Dana Balut]

In 2008, Bernie Farber was the leader of a Jewish advocacy group in Canada. He's the son of a Holocaust survivor, his father was the only surviving Jewish person from his small town of Bocki in Poland.

[Hassan Diab]

It was his courage and bravery that drove me towards understanding that the world is not always such a bright, shiny place.

[Dana Balut]

Bernie has been campaigning and speaking out against anti Semitism his entire career. And he still remembered the attack on the Copernic Synagogue three decades after it happened, and how it shook Jewish communities everywhere.

[Noah Michaelson]

So when the authorities arrested Hassan Diab in 2008, Bernie was appalled to learn that the suspect in this attack was living in Ottawa. He thought, finally, justice is being served.

[Hassan Diab]

Absolutely. And I didn't hesitate. You know, I did everything that I could to make sure that people understood that this was a terrorist bombing that targeted Jews specifically for one reason only, and that is that they were Jews. We said, thank God. That's what we said, that they caught this person.

[Noah Michaelson]

Almost right away. He started getting calls from journalists asking him to comment on the arrest.

[Dana Balut]

At the time, there was an article that we found where you applauded the French and the Canadian authorities for their work on the case.

[Hassan Diab]

I did. Hear, hear. I did. To have a terrorist in our midst in quiet old Ottawa, it was a little bit mind boggling, I have to say, and I was actually disgusted.

[Noah Michaelson]

About a year after Hassan Diab was arrested, the hearings to extradite him from Canada to France began in November 2009 at a courtroom in downtown Ottawa.

[Dana Balut]

The hearings attracted a lot of media attention. People wanted to know, how on earth could this suspected terrorist be hiding in plain sight in our quiet, peaceful city? How could he be teaching in our universities, hiking in our parks? Bernie Farber wanted answers to those questions too. So he attended the extradition hearings himself.

[Hassan Diab]

Either I was in court in Ottawa during the extradition hearings, or one of my colleagues was monitoring it for us. I was sitting there really quite smugly, you know, thinking, I just want to be part of this historical record, to say that I was here and I heard it and I can say to my children, I did what I had to do in order to bring this person to justice.

[Dana Balut]

It's important to remember here what was playing out in this courtroom in Ottawa was not a criminal trial. The judge wasn't trying to determine whether Hassan Diab was guilty or innocent. The only thing to be decided was whether or not the French case was credible, whether there was enough evidence to extradite him to France. A bit of context here. Canada and France are close allies with a well established extradition treaty. If France wants to try a Canadian citizen for serious charges like murder and requests an extradition to France, chances are almost certain Canada would oblige. The only way for Hassan Diab, a Canadian citizen since 1993, is to fight that extradition was to try and prove to a Canadian court that France's case against him was so thin and so flawed that it stood no chance.

[Noah Michaelson]

Three government lawyers in Canada represented the French case. They didn't respond to any of our interview requests. So what we know about their argument comes from court documents.

[Dana Balut]

For the most part, they relied on the dossier that French investigators had put together over the past few decades. Here's a quick recap of what led them to Hassan Diablo.

[Noah Michaelson]

One, Hassan Diab's passport was found in the possession of a PFLPOS member who was stopped at the airport in Rome. The passport had entry and exit stamps from Europe around the date of the attack.

[Dana Balut]

Two, a witness who was close to him in the 1970s told police that, yes, Hassan Diab was associated with a militant group back then.

[Noah Michaelson]

Three, back in 1980, police in Paris collected eyewitness descriptions of the suspect and had composite sketches drawn up. The French lawyers argued that the person in these sketches looked like Hassan Diab.

[Dana Balut]

Four intelligence reports from 1999 named Hassan Diab as one of several people involved in the attack.

[Noah Michaelson]

And five, a handwriting sample that the French say showed Hassan Diab's handwriting was a match for the bombers. Taken together, they argued that this was damning evidence that Hassan Diab was one of the people behind the synagogue attack in 1980.

[Dana Balut]

Considering all this, the odds looked pretty high that Hassan Diab would be sent to France to stand trial.

[Noah Michaelson]

In short, he needed a good lawyer.

[Hassan Diab]

What channel is this?

[Dana Balut]

We're just doing a podcast for Canada Land. Don Bain's office is right around the corner from the University of Ottawa where Hassan Diab first learned he was a suspect in this case.

[Hassan Diab]

Yeah, I bet. He's an interesting guy. Has a lot, a lot of history.

[Dana Balut]

George. The doorman at his office building called him, quote, the great Don Bain.

[Hassan Diab]

Well, they call him a quarterback because he was a good football player. But he's a top lawyer. Like, he's.

[Dana Balut]

Okay. Mr. Bain, could you introduce yourself to me?

[Hassan Diab]

My name is Don Bain. I'm Hassan Diab's lawyer.

[Dana Balut]

You're also a giant criminal lawyer in Canada?

[Hassan Diab]

No, I'm an average criminal lawyer in Canada.

[Dana Balut]

Don Baines seemed a little tired, and sitting down in his office, I could see why. There were piles of paper everywhere. Notebooks, documents he needed to sign. And boxes.

[Hassan Diab]

I would say there's in excess of 50. There's probably 40 more in my document storage. I haven't got them all out.

[Dana Balut]

The perimeter of his office was lined with cardboard boxes, most of them labeled in all caps, Diab. Something else caught my eye. A picture of Hassan Diab and his two kids on the shelf behind Don Bain's desk, right alongside all of his plaques and accolades. He's grown close to the Diab family since he first took on the case in 2009. Back then, he warned them it would be an uphill battle.

[Hassan Diab]

It was only when we got into the details of the. We saw that none of this was reliable evidence.

[Dana Balut]

Don Bain's job in that Ottawa courtroom was to convince the extradition judge of this. First, he attacked the intelligence reports, which explicitly listed Hassan Diab as one of the people behind the bombing.

[Hassan Diab]

Some of this alleged intelligence came from Israel. Some of it came from the old Stasi records. East Germany, that tortured people.

[Noah Michaelson]

We did manage to get our hands on the Israeli intelligence report, and it does contain errors. The date of the attack is wrong. Names are mixed up. Hassan's field is listed as psychology instead of sociology. The list goes on. As for the German intelligence reports, we've asked everybody we talk to for more information on lawyers, judges, magistrates, ex police officers, journalists. We filed information requests with the Stasi archives in Berlin and the bka, Germany's Federal Police. Nobody could give us any more detail on that intelligence. While they weren't relied on as evidence, the intelligence reports were in the record of the case and helped lead the French to Hassan Diab. And that was Don Bain's key argument in the courtroom. You can't use unreliable intelligence reports to identify a guy and then extradite him to a country where he could spend the rest of his life in prison. If you don't know anything about one of the major clues in your investigation.

[Hassan Diab]

It'S unknown sources, unknown circumstances, who said what, when. Is this a human source?

[Noah Michaelson]

Is this just something some analysts made up? We have no idea.

[Dana Balut]

Do they have an idea? Do the French courts have an idea? Or is it just.

[Noah Michaelson]

No. No.

[Hassan Diab]

The first record of the case conceded they did not know where this intelligence came from.

[Dana Balut]

Next, he attacked the police sketches, which French lawyers argued resembled Hassan's yab in the late 1970s. Donbain's argument here was simple. The witnesses who were interviewed described the attacker inconsistently. Some said he had glasses, some said he didn't. Some remembered long hair, others said it was short. Some remember a handlebar mustache. Some said it was closely cropped without any consistency. How could the sketches be reliable?

[Noah Michaelson]

Then there was Hassan Diab's passport. French investigators had a photocopy of his real passport, which in 1981 had been found in the possession of a member of the PFLP os, the group French investigators believed was behind the attack. In court, Don Bain argued that Hassan Diab had lost his passport, as he told us last episode. That it was in a bag on the back of his motorcycle which had fallen off in transit or been snatched. And that after Diab had lost the passport, it ended up in the wrong hands, possibly through the black market that thrived in Lebanon during the civil war.

[Hassan Diab]

The passport doesn't prove anything. Who knows if it's true or not.

[Noah Michaelson]

True, but the fact that somebody else.

[Hassan Diab]

Has your passport doesn't prove that he did a bombing.

[Dana Balut]

Onto the handwriting comparisons, which French lawyers described as their smoking gun, French police deduced that the bomber had stayed at the Hotel Celtic in Paris a few nights before the attack. They found the hotel registration card he filled out while he was there with five words written on Larnica, Cyprus technician and Alexandre Penadryou, the fake name the attacker was using. French investigators hired two experts to see if the handwriting on this card matched some samples of Hassan Diab's handwriting. Their conclusion? The handwriting was a match. But they ran into problems. It turns out the samples they'd analyzed weren't just of Hassan Diab's handwriting. There was also a PhD application in there written by somebody else.

[Hassan Diab]

When Dr. Diab applied for his PhD at Syracuse, he didn't actually write out the application. His former partner did.

[Dana Balut]

Noel Gupti, his ex wife wrote that application for him because Hassan told us her English was stronger. This sent the French investigators back to the drawing board. They hired another expert and gave her Hassan Diab's real handwriting. This time she also concluded that Hassan Diab's writing matched the hotel card. But Donbain was suspicious. These analysts had been hired by the French, so he wanted more opinions and he lined up four additional experts to review their work.

[Hassan Diab]

And from that, most of the handwriting experts that we went around the world, the us, the uk, Canada, Switzerland, said you can't possibly identify anybody's handwriting from that limited sample of block printing.

[Noah Michaelson]

I spoke to one of these experts, his name is John Osborne and fun fact, he's the great grandson of Albert S. Osborne, the guy who basically invented the entire field of handwriting analysis. John dug up the old case file and looked back over his review of the handwriting analysis used against Hassan Diab. In his report, he calls the French analysis Totally unreliable. And he wasn't alone. The three other forensic experts criticised the analysis too. One of them went as far as to say it was fatally biased and lacked objective reliability and accuracy. As the extradition case in Canada dragged on for years, Bernie Farber, the Jewish community leader in Ottawa, continued to show up for the hearings. He watched from the spectators section as Don Bain made his arguments against the French evidence.

[Hassan Diab]

There were two or three key pieces of evidence that not only didn't add up was just. I mean, I just couldn't believe it.

[Noah Michaelson]

And a few years into the hearings, he started to feel differently about what he was seeing.

[Hassan Diab]

It began to hit me like a dull anvil. For me, it came to a point where I just couldn't believe that people didn't understand that this was not the guy.

[Noah Michaelson]

Eventually, he changed his mind about Hassan Diab and he wanted to let others know.

[Hassan Diab]

Really, you don't need to be Inspector Clouseau to figure out what's going on here.

[Noah Michaelson]

So he called up his friend and political science professor, Mira Sukharov, to ask if she would co author an article about the case.

[Hassan Diab]

I left the courtroom and I called her and I said, this was not the guy. And that was the first time that I said it out loud. You know, obviously I thought it and it churned inside me, but when I spoke to Mira, that was the first time I said it out loud. And saying it out loud makes it even that much more devastating.

[Noah Michaelson]

Bernie Farber and Mira Sukharov published an opinion piece in the Toronto Star advocating for Hassan Diab's innocence. It was titled, Ottawa Must Seek justice for Hassan Diab. Not everyone agreed with them.

[Hassan Diab]

We are a community that has suffered tremendously and this bombing of the synagogue was devastating for the community. And when I, as a leader of the community, said, this is not our man, there were some very angry people.

[Noah Michaelson]

Bernie Farber has spent his life as a public campaigner. He's used to getting pushback when he speaks out, but this time he was really going out on a limb.

[Hassan Diab]

In the heart of my heart, I believe that I put a man's life not just necessarily at risk sitting in a jail cell, but turned his life around in ways that are unimaginable. That I played a role in having people believe that he was a guilty party. Had I not spoken out, I'm not sure I could have lived with myself properly. I made a mistake. And, you know, in our own Jewish tradition, we are told that in order to be forgiven for these kinds of situations, you have to do what is known as teshuvah. And teshuvah means basically standing up and admitting that you were wrong, admitting why you were wrong, and asking for forgiveness.

[Dana Balut]

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[Hassan Diab]

My name is Maeve McMahon.

[Dana Balut]

Most of the people in this room are above the age of 60. My name's Ida Henderson. Most are women.

[Hassan Diab]

I'm Jenny Hornesty.

[Dana Balut]

I'm here to support Hassan.

[Hassan Diab]

My name is Bessa Whitmore, and I'm also. I've been doing this for 15 years, too.

[Dana Balut]

And all are big fans of Hassan.

[Hassan Diab]

And see how courageous he is. He's a really nice guy. He's a great cook.

[Dana Balut]

The group members joined for various reasons.

[Hassan Diab]

My son was a student at Carleton, and he heard about it. He called me, told me about it. Mom, he says, this doesn't make any sense. Here was an opportunity to walk my talk, to say, this is. I'm not going to be silent in the face of injustice.

[Dana Balut]

But what brought them together was a shared outrage over what was happening to Hassan.

[Hassan Diab]

I mean, I do think that it's happening to Hassan.

[Dana Balut]

Number one.

[Hassan Diab]

His name is Hassan Diab, not John Smith. He wasn't born in, you know, Toronto.

[Noah Michaelson]

Or Ottawa, and there was definitely that element to it. And that just totally rubs me the wrong way.

[Dana Balut]

What struck Me most was that in this room, there was absolute conviction that Hassan is innocent. But did any of you ever waver in your belief that Hasan is innocent?

[Hassan Diab]

Not since I ever first met him.

[Dana Balut]

Yeah.

[Hassan Diab]

Not since I heard about the case.

[Noah Michaelson]

Yeah.

[Dana Balut]

Never, ever, never occurred to you that. That he might not be innocent?

[Hassan Diab]

He hates extremism in all its forms. He doesn't care who's being extreme. That's something he wants nothing to do with, you know, so it just.

[Dana Balut]

Now, Hasan was in the room when I asked this. So that might have swayed their answers, but they seemed sincere, truly devoted to his cause. Throughout the extradition hearings, Hassan's support group did everything they could to pressure the Canadian government to refuse the extradition. They circulated petitions, held press conferences. They wrote opinion pieces. Part of their mission, they told us, was keeping this case in the public eye. But one subset of the Hassan Diab support group went even further.

[Hassan Diab]

That's too high. I think it's too high. We do better when we just guess at it, I think.

[Dana Balut]

These are the raging grannies, and they protest in the most unique ways. For decades, these women have been protesting in favor of everything from environmental protections to women's rights. And shortly after hassan's arrest in 2008, his case landed on their radar, too.

[Hassan Diab]

There is no proof that he was there when the horrendous crime took place.

[Dana Balut]

In fact, there's proof that he was in Beirut.

[Hassan Diab]

So there really is no case.

[Dana Balut]

During Hassan's extradition hearings, the raging Grammys stood outside the courtroom in full costume. Dresses with bold patterns, hats covered in pins, bright scarves, Mardi Gras beads, and Hawaiian leis.

[Hassan Diab]

I'm putting on some beads right now, some Mardi Gras beads, actually. I put on my rangy granny skirt and my hat and my scarf and.

[Noah Michaelson]

All these other things.

[Dana Balut]

So is the point to look colorful?

[Hassan Diab]

Colorful and outrageous. And, hey, we're here to make a point.

[Dana Balut]

And they definitely made their point. Across Ottawa and beyond.

[Hassan Diab]

Extradition should never happen in the face of counter proof. While he was writing exams in Beirut.

[Dana Balut]

The Paris bomber blew the roof.

[Noah Michaelson]

Throughout the extradition hearings, Hassan was out of detention on strict bail conditions. In order to be released, he had to raise enough money to guarantee the Canadian authorities that he wouldn't flee the the country. Friends, family, and supporters chipped in. These people were called sureties. Noor Al Kadri was one of them.

[Dana Balut]

And a surety would be somebody that they will commit money in such a.

[Hassan Diab]

Way that if Hassan does not respect.

[Dana Balut]

His bail conditions, that we would lose that money. And they were asking for a big surety of $350,000.

[Noah Michaelson]

Wow. Okay, quick fact check here. It was 335,000 Canadian dollars. Still a lot of money, especially to put up in support of a guy who many people considered a terrorist.

[Dana Balut]

Okay. And he said, like, well, we. We could do this against our houses or mortgages.

[Hassan Diab]

So.

[Dana Balut]

And I said, okay, well, I'm willing to put a hundred thousand on my house and mortgage. A lot of friends would call me.

[Hassan Diab]

And the family and say, well, what are you putting yourself into?

[Dana Balut]

Why are you doing that?

[Noah Michaelson]

What made you so sure that Hassan wasn't gonna mess up and lose your money?

[Dana Balut]

Okay. Well, sometimes when you speak to somebody, you sense that he was confident day one when he was detained, that he's innocent. I felt sure deep inside I trusted my gut feelings that this is an innocent man. The rest of the bail was split between four other sureties. But even while out of prison, living his life at home, Hassan Diab faced strict conditions. For instance, he had to remain inside his house between 9pm and 7am each day.

[Hassan Diab]

When you wake up in the morning.

[Noah Michaelson]

You start thinking of, well, is it 7:00 now?

[Hassan Diab]

Because I want to drop the garbage out in the thing, you know, I'm waiting just to make it seven, because they might be outside the door, who knows?

[Dana Balut]

Another condition was that he had to stay within a confined perimeter in Ottawa. He could go to his favorite hiking spot in Gatino Park. But one wrong turn along the way might risk putting him back in jail. Hassan also wasn't allowed to be alone ever, except to go to the bathroom if he went out to eat or went to the supermarket. One of his sureties needed to be with him at all times. Often Noor Al Qadri would take up that responsibility. Yes, I was one of five who was supposed to be with him if his wife has to leave the house. So if she had to go and teach a class in the evening, I had to be there. If he wanted to take a vacation, for instance, I had to be with him.

[Hassan Diab]

So it was extremely difficult. First, you don't work anymore. You are under surveillance. If you need to do anything, you need to call someone.

[Dana Balut]

And being out on bail came with another price tag. Hasan had to cover the cost of his GPS ankle bracelet, around $2,000 a month. He said his support group chipped in for that, too. Since Hassan had lost his job, Carleton.

[Noah Michaelson]

University terminated my contract while I was still teaching.

[Hassan Diab]

They didn't tell me. They put it in my mailbox, the termination letter.

[Dana Balut]

All of this Came with a constant state of paranoia.

[Noah Michaelson]

Oh, it's like you sleep, you see.

[Hassan Diab]

All the things around you. You look around you. Who's now behind me, who's taping, who's wire taping. You know, it's hard to explain because it's hard to live it. It's hard to describe what you go through.

[Dana Balut]

In the meantime. The extradition hearings dragged on for years and the support group's work started to pay off.

[Noah Michaelson]

Now there was a change in the.

[Hassan Diab]

Atmosphere because people came to support me.

[Noah Michaelson]

As the case drew to a close, the public narrative started to change.

[Hassan Diab]

And we are here today to say that in the case of Hassan Diab, we will not allow the rubber stamping of this extradition because this extradition is unjust. And then the story started taking a different shape.

[Dana Balut]

As the Ontario Superior Court inches closer towards a final decision in the extradition case of Hassan Diab, public pressure intensifies.

[Noah Michaelson]

The extradition hearings ended in June 2011. They took around 80 days in court over two years, making this one of the longest extradition hearings in Canada's history. On the final day, the judge was set to announce his decision. Bernie Farber was convinced Hassan Diab was about to be vindicated.

[Hassan Diab]

I thought, okay, now the judge is going to make things right because that's what judges are supposed to do.

[Noah Michaelson]

In his statement, the judge made clear that he was not impressed with the evidence the French had put forward.

[Hassan Diab]

Basically said, there's not a case here.

[Noah Michaelson]

Just as Hassan Diab's legal team had hoped. The judge said it was a, quote, weak case, replete with seemingly disconnected information, and that the handwriting analysis was soft science that was highly susceptible to criticism and impeachment. In point after point, the judge agreed with Hassan Diab's lawyer that the French case against him was terribly flawed.

[Hassan Diab]

And then he said, but there's nothing that I can do about it.

[Noah Michaelson]

Even though the judge had serious doubts about most of the evidence, he couldn't completely discredit the handwriting analysis. In his words, it was, quote, convoluted, very confusing, with conclusions that are suspect, unquote. But it was enough to tip the scale.

[Hassan Diab]

The law does not permit me to find anything other than this.

[Noah Michaelson]

His hands were tied. France's lawyers had met a very low bar for extradition.

[Hassan Diab]

That hit me like a brick. I was really pissed. I really was more at myself than anything else, and I felt partially responsible for that. And it's one of those moments in my life space that I regret, will always regret, and I find it hard sometimes to forgive myself.

[Dana Balut]

The judge's decision was a massive blow to Hassan Diab and his supporters. They filed several appeals to no avail. Eventually, the legal team tried to Hail Mary. They asked Canada's Supreme Court to review the case, hoping for a different outcome.

[Hassan Diab]

Hassan Diab supporters here at the Supreme Court of Canada and of course Diab himself, who is currently in the regional detention centre, received some bad news minutes ago.

[Noah Michaelson]

The Supreme Court will not hear this.

[Hassan Diab]

Appeal against extradition and it now seems.

[Dana Balut]

Inevitable that he will be taken to France.

[Hassan Diab]

This is the end of the Canadian chapter, at least of a six year legal odyssey for Diab.

[Dana Balut]

On November 13, 2014, the Supreme Court declined to hear Hassan Diab's appeal. There was nothing he or his lawyers or supporters could do. Maeve McMahon was there that day with others from the support group.

[Hassan Diab]

So we're just there shivering. Supreme Court's not going to hear it, so now we know he's going to be extradited. And it was just like the energy level, it was already low, but this drop of energy and people just looking at their feet and walking away, it was just devastating. We just held on to each other.

[Dana Balut]

And we were crying, crying all the time. How could anything like this happen to somebody like him? You're getting a bit emotional.

[Hassan Diab]

I am, I am, yeah. No, it was, it was hard to watch.

[Dana Balut]

It was definitely hard to watch.

[Hassan Diab]

We're determined to continue and absolutely this was not going to be the end of the situation. We were going to fight it all away.

[Dana Balut]

Hassan Diab heard the news from the detention center where he was being held as the Supreme Court decision was announced.

[Hassan Diab]

I heard the decision from the lawyer. I called the lawyer and he said, Supreme Court didn't consider the case, therefore you will be extradited.

[Dana Balut]

The next day, he was put on a plane to France. His daughter was about to turn two and his wife Rania was pregnant with their second child. He requested to see them one more time before his extradition, but this never happened.

[Hassan Diab]

He, the lawyer, arranged to see, you know, to bring the family to the cell before I go to France. And I didn't see the family. No. At night they put me on the plane and here we go. It's like you feel or you wish. If the plane goes down, I don't care anymore. Now.

[Dana Balut]

This may have been the worst day of Hassan Diab's life, but for the victims of the Copernic synagogue bombing, it was a day of relief. It had been 34 years since the attack and now, finally, France's main suspect was on his way to Paris for further investigation and a possible trial. I asked investigative judge Mark Trevdick, the man responsible for turning this case around, about this moment. So how did it feel after six years in 2014 to have Hassan Diab in France finally?

[Hassan Diab]

Yes, I must admit that I was happy. So it was a Saturday, I can remember that. And all the policemen who dealt with the case were very happy, very exciting, etc. And I said, no, be careful. It's just the beginning. It's not the end for us.

[Noah Michaelson]

Coming up on the Kopernick Affair, days.

[Dana Balut]

Turned into weeks, which turned into months of him languishing.

[Noah Michaelson]

You are in a constant state of hallucination.

[Hassan Diab]

You can't close your eyes.

[Noah Michaelson]

You sleep while your eyes are open.

[Hassan Diab]

I was obliged to leave, that's all. When you are following this trial, you know that he's guilty.

[Dana Balut]

One of them kept looking at me and I think may have even screamed, you are a liar or something. And we think that at least some justice was done and it is a move in the right direction. The Copernic Affair is a production of Canadalands in partnership with House of Many Windows. The series is written and produced by me, Dana Bellutz and Alex Atak. Our editor is Julie Shapiro. Additional production by Nurazrie Additional research, production and translation support by Kathryn Bennett Sound design and mixing by Resonant Fields Audio Original music by the Tiebreakers. Our artwork is by Tony Wong. Our executive producers are Jesse Brown and Julie Shapiro, and Jesse Brown is Canada Land's publisher and editor. Special thanks this episode to Jonathan Najarian and Chris Cobb, former reporter at Theottawa Citizen, for sharing his experience of reporting on Hassan Diab's extradition hearing. If you can't wait to hear what happens next, become a [e-mail] join to listen to every episode of the Kopernick Affair early and ad free right now. You'll also be helping vital independent journalism along the way. You can also listen early and ad free by subscribing to Canadaland beyond channel, on Apple Podcast or on Amazon Music included with Prime. Thank you for listening. If you want to help, the best thing you can do is spread the word, let people know about this show, share it on social and encourage people to support work like ours.

[Noah Michaelson]

Hi, I'm Raj Panjabi from HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michaelson, also from HuffPost.

[Dana Balut]

And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all.

[Hassan Diab]

Too human anxieties we have about trying.

[Dana Balut]

To get our lives right.

[Noah Michaelson]

Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right. And we're talking like legit, credible experts, doctors, PhDs all around, superheroes from HuffPost and Acast Studios. Check out Am I Doing It Wrong? Wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's Giles Wittell from Tortoise. Welcome to the news meeting.

[Hassan Diab]

I think the danger here is that.

[Noah Michaelson]

We'Re not as relentless as we or.

[Dana Balut]

The first time around. We have to keep that up. Just One newspaper found 30,000 thousand lies or falsehoods or misleading statements during his last term. Trump met the moment here because traditional media is in crisis.

[Hassan Diab]

We should be talking about how our.

[Dana Balut]

Reporting is getting into the hands of people and how we're building trust with those audience.