Episode 6: The Trial

Summary

The Copernic Affair | Canadaland Investigates – Episode 6: The Trial

Release Date: February 19, 2025

Hosts: Dana Boulut and Alex Atak

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1. Introduction and Background

The Copernic Affair delves into the complex and contentious case of Hassan Diab, a Canadian sociology professor accused of orchestrating the 1980 bomb attack on the Copernic Synagogue in Paris. The episode, titled "The Trial," explores the intricate legal battles, emotional testimonies, and the enduring quest for justice surrounding this decades-old tragedy.

2. Hassan Diab's Release and Life in Canada

After more than three years of detention in a notorious French prison, Hassan Diab was released in early 2018 due to insufficient evidence, much to the dismay of the victims and their families. Dana Boulut narrates:

"After more than three years in a French prison without ever standing trial, Hassan Diab was released. For him and his supporters, this was a day to celebrate." ([02:13])

However, the release left the victims feeling abandoned:

"Why? You know, after so many years of attempting to extradite him, suddenly they just let him go. And this is it. He's back in Canada." ([02:51])

Back in Canada, Diab returned to his teaching position at Carleton University, but the psychological toll of his ordeal was evident. Friends observed a noticeable change in his demeanor:

"I think he's adopted a kind of looking over your shoulder, feeling all the time like he's always on guard..." ([04:58])

3. Reopening of the Case and New Trial Proceedings

In 2021, French prosecutors, alongside victims' lawyers, appealed Diab's release, reigniting the case without presenting new evidence. Raj Panjabi recounts a meeting with Vice Prosecutor Benjamin Chambes in Paris:

"Benjamin Chambes...He was also friendlier than I'd expected...Could you just introduce yourself to who you are?" ([07:00])

Chambes explained the prosecutors' role in re-examining the case with fresh eyes, even though no new evidence had emerged:

"He says that it was a real disgrace that Hassan Diab didn't come to France and that represented a sort of exception in French courtrooms." ([10:08])

Due to the lengthy process required for extradition, Diab remained in Canada and opted not to return to France, believing that doing so would result in a prolonged or permanent imprisonment.

4. Trial Testimonies and Evidence

The trial commenced in April 2023 at a historic courthouse near Notre Dame. Over three weeks, the courtroom was filled with emotional testimonies from victims, families, and experts. Key testimonies included:

• Nawal Khopti, Diab's ex-wife, steadfastly maintained his innocence despite her presence in Beirut during the attack:

  "I was in France for more than three years and I told my story to the professional judges, not to the circus media style trial and court." ([09:48])

• Oren Chagrir, a victim whose mother was killed, shared his enduring pain:

  "I'm not Jewish, but I'm with them. They are the primary victims. I'm just a collateral victim." ([16:33])

• Corinne Adler, a young victim traumatized by the attack, recounted the lasting impact on her life.

Despite the emotional weight of the testimonies, the evidence presented was largely circumstantial. Notably, fingerprints found at the scene did not match Diab’s, and handwriting analyses were ultimately deemed inconclusive.

5. Verdict and Aftermath

On April 21, 2023, the court delivered its verdict. After deliberations, Diab was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, due to his residence in Canada and the absence of an active extradition request, he remained free:

"He'd have to be extradited and face another trial in France." ([43:49])

The decision was met with mixed reactions:

• Victims and Families: Felt a sense of closure, albeit incomplete, acknowledging the court's recognition of their suffering:

  "We think that at least some justice was done and it is a move in the right direction." ([34:24])

• Supporters of Diab: Remained disheartened, believing the verdict was unjust and feared further legal actions:

  "I'm really sorry that this crime happened... Let's try and make sure that whoever did this is the person who would be punished for this, but not an innocent man." ([25:05])

6. Impact on Hassan Diab and Supporters

The prolonged legal battles have had profound effects on Diab and his support network. Returning to Canada did not equate to freedom; instead, Diab lived under constant fear of potential extradition and arrest:

"Hassan Diab lives with the constant dread that another SWAT team will arrive outside his door and the fear that Canada will follow through on another request from France to extradite him." ([43:49])

Supporters like Don Pratt and Nawal Khopti continue their efforts to advocate for Diab, grappling with the emotional strain of their protracted fight:

"Our big concern is a change in government and finding that the political will is there now to appease the French... We've kind of given up on that." ([49:51])

Despite the exhaustion, the community remains steadfast in their belief in Diab’s innocence, hoping for eventual resolution and justice:

"We are going to be publishing more investigations... but this story is not over." ([26:02])

7. Conclusion

The Trial encapsulates the enduring struggle between justice and advocacy, highlighting the complexities of international legal proceedings and their human impact. While the court's decision provided some semblance of closure for the victims, it left Hassan Diab and his supporters in a state of limbo, reflecting the unresolved tensions that persist decades after the initial tragedy.

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Note: This summary focuses solely on the content related to the trial and its ramifications, omitting promotional segments and advertisements present in the original transcript.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker A]

Canada land funded by you.

[Raj Panjabi]

Hi, I'm Raj Panjabi from HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michaelson, also from HuffPost. And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying.

[Noah Michaelson]

To get our lives right.

[Raj Panjabi]

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.

[Hassan Diab]

How to get it right.

[Raj Panjabi]

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. Who's abducting 100,000 children in China each year? And how was a cult where pedophilia, murder and torture were commonplace allowed to operate in Chile for nearly four decades? At True Crime Reports, a new video podcast from Al Jazeera, we'll investigate these stories from the global south and beyond. True crimes that often haven't reached the headlines in the West. I'm Halem Ojideen. In each episode, we'll take you to a different country. You'll hear from experts and first hand accounts from those right at the heart of these stories. True Crime Reports. Find us under Al Jazeera's YouTube channel podcast tab and wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noah Michaelson]

Last time on the Copernic Affair.

[Nawal Khopti]

At night they put me on the plane and here we go. You feel or you wish? If the plane goes down, I don't care anymore.

[Noah Michaelson]

Now Hassan Diab was extradited to France and sent to one of Europe's most notorious prisons on the outskirts of Paris.

[Nawal Khopti]

The guards in France would ask me, sometimes, you know, why you talk to me and you don't look me in the eye? I said, because I don't see you. You don't exist.

[Noah Michaelson]

He was held there for more than a year, awaiting trial. Then a twist of fate.

[Nawal Khopti]

Bang. They changed the judge.

[Noah Michaelson]

Two new judges were assigned to reinvestigate his case.

[Nawal Khopti]

And I said, guys, I will give you a chance. I will talk to you. I hope you're not biased. And I talked to them.

[Raj Panjabi]

And by the end of their years long investigation, they ruled that there was insufficient evidence to keep him detained. After more than three years in a French prison without ever standing trial, Hassan Diab was released. For him and his supporters, this was a day to celebrate.

[Unknown Speaker A]

And it's one of those moments in my decades of human rights work that I'll never forget. One of those precious moments where you have a sense of victory, a sense of jubilation.

[Raj Panjabi]

But for the victims of the Copenik synagogue attack, the French authorities had made a terrible mistake. They felt like they'd been so close to finding justice, and now that closure had been snatched away from them.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Why? You know, after so many years of attempting to extradite him, suddenly they just let him go. And this is it. He's back in Canada.

[Raj Panjabi]

It was definitely disappointing, but the case wasn't over.

[Unknown Speaker A]

We all, I think, really felt like that was the end. I think there was this sense of confidence that surely now, no matter what continued to happen in the French legal system, everything was going to go in his favor. And how wrong we were.

[Noah Michaelson]

I'm Dana Boulut.

[Raj Panjabi]

I'm Alex Atak.

[Noah Michaelson]

And this is the final episode of the Kopernick affairs. Hassan Diab's return to Canada in January 2018 was the beginning of a period of relative stability for him and his family. His daughter was five and and his son, who he'd only ever met a couple of times during prison visits, was nearly three. After a few months, he returned to his old job, teaching in the sociology department at Carleton University. But his mental state had taken a considerable hit. Physically, he was back in his home, eating at his own table, sleeping in his own bed. But in his mind, he was still back in France, stuck in the routine that prison had imposed on him.

[Nawal Khopti]

I spent the first nine months where I didn't know what was going on. Every morning, waiting for the cell to open the door of the cell, and I kept waiting and, oh, they are coming, they are there. And that was the first year practically, I was still there.

[Noah Michaelson]

He'd wake up in the middle of the night, terrified, for no obvious reason, worried that his kids were being kidnapped. Old friends like Don Pratt, who he'd known for decades, noticed this change.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I think it's affected him in profound yet subtle ways. I think he's adopted a kind of looking over your shoulder, feeling all the time like he's always on guard, that some, you know, the shit's gonna go down. He's not as vivacious and, you know, fun loving as he used to be. He's a lot more, I think, muted.

[Raj Panjabi]

This was the psychological toll of the past decade, the battle raging inside Hassan's head. And then there was everything happening on the outside. A former Ottawa professor who spent three.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Years in a French prison is back home. Glad you're back in Canada?

[Nawal Khopti]

Oh, very much.

[Raj Panjabi]

What was it like at the airport.

[Noah Michaelson]

When you saw your wife?

[Raj Panjabi]

He was stopped in the streets by people who'd seen his face on tv. There were press conferences, media interviews, meetings with politicians.

[Nawal Khopti]

I'm in the process of reintegrating here in ordinary life for the future. I do not have any specific plans.

[Raj Panjabi]

He questioned every new person he met and trusted none of them. Constantly wondering what new danger could be lurking around the corner.

[Nawal Khopti]

And you have always. You look around and you see sometimes even funky people looking at you in a funky way. You feel like, uh, who's this now? Nobody's innocent. No one.

[Noah Michaelson]

It turned out his paranoia was justified. Early in 2018, a team of prosecutors in France, along with lawyers representing the victims and their families, launched an appeal to overturn the decision that granted Hassan Diab his freedom. And a new cycle of legal proceedings started right back up again.

[Raj Panjabi]

While I was in Paris about a year ago, my colleague Catherine and I took a train to the outskirts of the city. We had an appointment in the main courthouse in Paris to meet one of the prosecutors behind the appeal. After a bag check, we were let through into a tall, bright atrium and were taken upstairs into a waiting room. A few minutes later, Benjamin Chambes stepped in. He's a vice prosecutor in France's National Anti Terrorism Unit, and he was much younger than I thought he'd be, with a sharp grey suit and a trimmed beard. He was also friendlier than I'd expected. We tried to set up interviews with as many people as we could in France. Many had declined, some had canceled honours at the last minute. And the whole time I was in Paris, I had this feeling that some people were just suspicious of us. Like, why were these two foreign journalists asking questions about this particular case? But Benjamin Shawn was willing to get into it with us. He smiled apologetically for being a couple of minutes late and guided us into a big conference room, empty except for a table, some chairs and a big stack of documents. Could you just introduce yourself to who you are? Benjamin Chambe first got involved in this case when French prosecutors and the victims lawyers appealed the previous judge's decision to release Hassan Diablo.

[Benjamin Chambes]

So his role is the general advocate, is to represent society, to represent the French state and the French society. So they were asked to look at it with completely fresh eyes.

[Noah Michaelson]

There was nothing different in the case file these prosecutors were looking at. No new evidence had come to light. But as we've learned throughout our reporting, this case is like one of those optical illusions where some people look at the image and see a vase, others will see two silhouettes in profile. In the Kopernik case, evidence that had once been dismissed as Insignificant or unreliable by one judge became credible, even enlightening, to another.

[Raj Panjabi]

In January 2021, three years after Hassan Diab was released from French prison, the appeals court sided with Champs and the victim's lawyers and delivered their judgment. There was enough evidence for the case to go to trial. The problem was by this point Hassan Diab was back in Canada. He was asked by prosecutors to return to France and attend the trial, but he refused.

[Nawal Khopti]

Many people told me, why don't you go to France and meet the judges and fix it and come back if you have nothing? I said no, because they will put me in jail for good time.

[Raj Panjabi]

And without another extradition order, he was under no obligation to cooperate.

[Nawal Khopti]

I was in France for more than three years and I told my story to the professional judges, not to the circus media style trial and court. If it wasn't enough, I don't think they will be satisfied.

[Raj Panjabi]

The professional judges Hassan is referring to here are Jean Marc Herbaud and Richard Folzer, the ones who dismissed his case in 2018. This new trial in 2023 included new judges who he believed didn't know the case as well as Erbo and Falser.

[Nawal Khopti]

I'm not going to spend my life pleasing this and that.

[Raj Panjabi]

That's my answer to the victims of the attack and to the prosecutors. This was unacceptable, even cowardly, from their perspective. If Hassan Diab says he's innocent, then why not prove that in a court? Benjamin Chambes was frustrated.

[Benjamin Chambes]

He says that it was a real disgrace that Hassan Diab didn't come to Commod and that represented a sort of exception in French courtrooms. Normally that wouldn't be allowed to happen. He says that he would have liked to have seen what witnesses would have said upon seeing his face in front of them. He would have liked to ask him questions to sort of clear up certain things that they weren't able to discover during the trial.

[Raj Panjabi]

But it had taken six years to extradite Hassan Diab the first time. And according to Mark Trevedique, one of the previous investigative judges, French authorities didn't want to wait that long again to bring him back to France. So they proceeded without him. Hassan Diab would be tried in absentia.

[Noah Michaelson]

At what point were you called or asked or decided to participate in the trial?

[Don Pratt]

The prosecutor decided to call me, so I was considered on the prosecutor's witness list.

[Noah Michaelson]

Hassan Diab's ex wife, Nawal Kupdi, was among the handful of people who said they remembered him being in Beirut around the time of the Copernic Synagogue. Attack. She received a letter requesting her presence at a Paris court for Hassan Diab's trial, scheduled to take place in April 2023. He was accused of murder, attempted murder and organized destruction of property in connection with a terrorist enterprise. Nawal Gupti told us she knows Hassan Diab is innocent. She'd already made that clear during an earlier trip to Paris when she was interviewed by the previous set of investigative judges. So in 2023, when she was asked to answer questions about the case again, this time in front of a courtroom, she knew she would do it. Was that like an immediate decision or did you have to think about that?

[Don Pratt]

No, I didn't have to think about that. No, it was. I think it was important for me to go and say what I know about Hassan and tell them the facts. I was feeling that this injustice, this whole nightmare has been going on for too far.

[Noah Michaelson]

For the second time, she bought and booked a flight to France. Her husband, Dawn Pratt, who by now spent years campaigning for Hassan Diab's innocence, traveled with her. More than 20 victims of the attack and their families were also in Paris for the trial. Oren Chagrir, whose mother Elisa was killed by the explosion, was among them.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah, they invited me, so me. It was also very emotional to meet the other families there. We formed like a sort of a community. Some of the injured people, some of the people whose relatives were killed in the attack. We all felt, I think, that after so many years, at last someone takes this attack more seriously and finally we have some sort of procedures.

[Noah Michaelson]

One of the victims of the attack described the feeling like being isolated on an island, along with the only other people in the world who could understand what you've been through. Other victims. And now they were all together, hoping the trial would bring them justice.

[Hassan Diab]

On Monday, France's top court put Hassan Diab on trial in connection with a 43 year old bombing attack outside a Paris synagogue.

[Raj Panjabi]

The trial took place at a centuries old courthouse on the River Seine, a stone's throw from Notre Dame.

[Unknown Speaker A]

It seemed like a place that had seen many, many, many trials, you know, over the years.

[Raj Panjabi]

Noel Copte and Don Pratt arrived and navigated their way through the hallways and to the courtroom.

[Don Pratt]

So you had like wooden benches in the front part. 85% of the courtroom was taken over by people on the prosecution side.

[Unknown Speaker A]

There were some journalists who had reserved seating somewhat closer to the front. There were quite a few people dressed in the robe, so you knew they were lawyers.

[Raj Panjabi]

Don and Nawal were the only people there in person to testify on Hassan Diab's behalf.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Yeah, it was just us, just the two of us.

[Raj Panjabi]

So for the most part, Hassan Diab's case was argued by his French lawyer, William Bourdon. He said that from the very beginning he anticipated fighting an uphill battle with this trial.

[Benjamin Chambes]

It seemed like he had already been judged guilty from the start, even before the trial had even begun. And so he said that when he took on the case, he realized that he had to start right from the beginning and show how all of the elements of evidence against him weren't sufficient.

[Raj Panjabi]

Over the course of three weeks, the court heard a lot of testimonies from police officers who originally investigated the attack.

[Nawal Khopti]

Je tez Moynier de Manieres objectives I.

[Benjamin Chambes]

Testified in the trial, I tried to be as objective as possible. I don't like it when police officers or investigators, they have a personal opinion that they show, particularly in a trial situation.

[Noah Michaelson]

The court heard from witnesses who'd crossed paths with the suspect in the days leading up to the bombing, and from.

[Raj Panjabi]

The victims who told the court how much pain this attack had inflicted.

[Unknown Speaker A]

So they asked me to tell the story of my mother, how she was killed and how the terror attack impacted our family.

[Raj Panjabi]

Patricia Barbe, the daughter of Jean Michel Barbe, the driver who was killed in the attack, read an emotional letter addressed to her father. He was killed before she turned 16.

[Noah Michaelson]

Rabbi Michael Williams took the stand and recalled his memories of the day and the devastation it left behind among the families of the victims. He shared with the court that the parents of Philippe Buissou, the 22 year old motorcyclist who was killed on his way to see his fiance, visited the Copernic Synagogue every year on the anniversary of the attack to pray with the congregation.

[Raj Panjabi]

Gerald Barbier was 28 when the bomb was detonated right next to his parents electrical appliance shop. His mother was injured and he said shards of glass from the explosion remained in her body until the day she died. In his testimony, he said, I'm not Jewish, but I'm with them. They are the primary victims. I'm just a collateral victim.

[Noah Michaelson]

Corinne Adler also took the stand. She was 13 years old at the time and was celebrating her Bat Mitzvah the night of the bombing. Her siblings, parents, friends from school and grandparents who had traveled from Israel were all there to celebrate with her. In the aftermath of the bombing, she started to lose her eyebrows due to stress and spent decades coping with her violent entry into adulthood. The court also heard from experts on terrorism, explosives, Palestinian militia groups, handwriting analysis.

[Raj Panjabi]

And psychology from journalists who Covered the.

[Noah Michaelson]

Story over the years from Hassan Diab's ex partners and friends who testified by.

[Raj Panjabi]

Video from intelligence officers and investigating judges, including Mark Treved.

[Nawal Khopti]

I did my job. They have the file. I'm not here to give an opinion. I'm not here to tell the court what they must do with my job.

[Noah Michaelson]

Were you quite convinced that Hassan Diab was guilty?

[Nawal Khopti]

No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to tell you that. There is a separation, total separation between investigating judge and judgment. I am well known in France, you know, as a judge. So what I say of my opinion has a weight. So I don't want to use that. I never did that. Everybody knows the evidence.

[Hassan Diab]

If judges think that it's not enough, it's not enough.

[Noah Michaelson]

There was something else Mark Trevudik said during his questioning.

[Nawal Khopti]

I have nothing against Hassan Yab. Of course Hassan Diab wasn't the main target of the case.

[Hassan Diab]

The main target was in Lebanon.

[Nawal Khopti]

It was Salim Abu Salem, the chief.

[Noah Michaelson]

Of on the Stand. Mark Trevorick said his primary target had been a Palestinian man named Salim Abu Salem, apparently the leader of the group who carried out the attack in 1980.

[Nawal Khopti]

My main purpose was to have enough evidence against Salim. I prefer to catch the chief than the moose.

[Noah Michaelson]

Better to catch the chief than the mouse. Which tells us something quite revelatory about this entire case. This was never just about Hassan Diab. Remember those intelligence reports that named him as the bomber? They also named nine other people who were suspected of being involved in the Kopernik attack. Salim Abu Salem was one of them. We know he headed the PFL POS starting in 1979 and on. We tried to find out more but information about him was sparse. Over the years French investigators pursued other people on the list as well. A woman named Mael Aja in Chile, Marwan Al Khatib, Abdallah, Subah Sanat Saleh, all whose exact whereabouts were unknown. And there were others as well. We tried to reach these people too. We found out that some were dead, one didn't answer our calls and others seemed to have dropped off the grid.

[Raj Panjabi]

By the time Trevudik's term as investigative judge was up. Abu Salam's whereabouts were still a mystery.

[Nawal Khopti]

It's over. It's over. The other members of groups, it's over because the investigations are over. So I would have appreciate just to stay one or two years more in charge in Paris. That's all. We did our best really.

[Noah Michaelson]

I think for French investigators, Hassan Ziab just happened to be the only person who was alive and findable and. And who lived in a country that had an extradition agreement with France and a government willing to cooperate. If he'd lived in almost any other country in the world, if he'd stayed living in Lebanon, for example, or the UAE or Kuwait, it's likely none of what we've told you in this podcast would have happened.

[Raj Panjabi]

A few days after Mark Trevdick was questioned, it was Noel Copte's turn to take the stand.

[Don Pratt]

When my turn came, they asked me to go into the courtroom and answer questions. So I was standing in the front of the courtroom facing the judges.

[Raj Panjabi]

Nawal was asked about her relationship with Hassan Diab and about his passport, which was found with a member of the group who supposedly carried out the attack. And about the few weeks around the date of the bombing when she says she remembers being with Hassan Diab in Beirut. The court questioned why she hadn't just offered all this information up when she was first asked back in 2008.

[Don Pratt]

I felt that they were dismissing my answers. I felt that whatever I was saying didn't register or they decided to ignore it.

[Noah Michaelson]

How did you come to that conclusion? Like, what do you mean?

[Don Pratt]

I just felt that they were looking at me, going through the motions, but not really taking what I said into consideration. So the fact that Hassan was in Lebanon at the time didn't make a difference.

[Noah Michaelson]

During your time there, did you meet any of the victims of the attack or their family members?

[Don Pratt]

Yes, because they were in the room and they knew I was the witness, and they knew that I knew Hassan. So I got some unfriendly looks and some negative comments.

[Noah Michaelson]

Noel said one woman called her a liar. She didn't know the woman's name. But in an interview we heard with French media, one of the victims, Isabel Frank, told the journalist that she had approached Noel and told her, quote, I know you're religious, so you must know that lying is wrong, and the things you're saying in that courtroom are not true. We tried to reach Isabel Frank through her lawyer, but the interview was declined.

[Don Pratt]

Well, when they said that to me, I couldn't say anything. I was silent because what am I to say? I mean, I feel their anger. They're upset.

[Noah Michaelson]

Did you get a chance to interact with any of the victims?

[Unknown Speaker A]

I was very standoffish. I didn't want to interact with people generally. One time when we were online waiting to enter and go through the security, a lady who I knew was the daughter of one of the victims dropped her scarf, and I picked it up and gave it to her, and she was very gracious about receiving her scarf back. I thought, you know, under different circumstances, we could be friends maybe, you know, it just. She seemed like a decent person, but obviously operating under a very different set of assumptions than me.

[Raj Panjabi]

On the eighth day of the trial, Jean Marc Harbeau and Richard Folzer, the two judges who dismissed Hassan's case for a lack of sufficient evidence, took the stand. They basically reiterated what they'd written in their original 2018 report. They reminded the court that authorities found a set of fingerprints on the same hotel registration card that they took a handwriting sample sample from and another set on a car linked to the bombing. Both were believed to have been left by the perpetrator, but they did not match Hassan Diab's fingerprints. It's worth pausing on these fingerprints for a moment because this trial in 2023 wasn't the first time they'd come up. French police had found the fingerprints in 2007, but had failed to disclose them during Hassan Diab's extradition hearings. In fact, their record of the case from 2008 said that they, quote, did not discover any usable fingerprint traces. We put all of this to Mark Trevedick. He insisted that they didn't know about the fingerprints. When they submitted the record of the case to Canada.

[Noah Michaelson]

Over three weeks, prosecutors slowly picked their way through the case, through all the evidence that had been collected over four decades, none of it new to this trial, nor this podcast. Hassanziab's legal team presented their counter arguments too, all of which we've also presented in this series. And in a twist, the court dropped the handwriting analysis, the primary evidence once used to justify Hassan Diab's extradition to France after they determined the comparisons were inconclusive. For Oren Chegrer and many others in the courtroom, the collective evidence painted a clear picture of Hassan Diab as the perpetrator.

[Unknown Speaker A]

First of all, I think it was like the different pieces together. So you can say, well, you know, there is no DNA. We all know it. You can challenge, you know, every piece of it. But when they all come together, all evidence together comprises a very strong case against Diablo.

[Raj Panjabi]

But to Nawar Khopti, this picture of the man she had known for decades, the man she was once married to, was unfathomable.

[Don Pratt]

I'm really sorry that this crime happened. It's a terrible crime. But look at the evidence and make sure that whoever is paying for this crime is the right person and Hassan is not that person. The facts support this. I know him. Anybody who knows him supports this. So let's try and make sure that whoever did this is the person who would be punished for this, but not an innocent man.

[Hassan Diab]

Greetings, my fellow Americans. I'm just joking. I'm not an American. I'm the editor and publisher of Canadaland. My name is Jesse Brown and I don't even know if we're friends anymore. I'm told that we're in some sort of a war, a trade war with Americans. But you just listened to one of our podcasts to the Copernic Affair. Thank you for listening to our stuff. I'm going to try to do something very difficult here. I'm going to try to convince Americans to support a Canadian podcast company during a trade war. And I think I'm going to do that. I think I'm going to accomplish that. If you listen to this message, I think you're going to want to support Canadaland. Who are we even? We are the first podcast company in Canada. We've been doing this for 12 years. And we do investigations, long form, deep dive, journalistic investigations like the one you're listening to now. This story of Hassan Diab, this story, the Kopernik Affair. Dana and Alex pitched it to a bunch of American podcast companies and international podcast companies. But the industry is not looking for deep dive investigations right now. They are expensive, they are difficult, and they were turned down by people who loved the story but didn't have the budgets for it. Canadaland supported them for this 18 month investigation. We've been doing it again and again. This is how we made our reputation. We began over a decade ago by doing what you would call a MeToo investigation of a very famous sexual predator here in Canada, a guy named Jean Ghomeshi. We did that story before, years before the MeToo movement happened. We did that here. And we're threatened with a lawsuit for it. We've been threatened with lawsuits again and again and again. Jordan Peterson threatened us with a lawsuit. Hollywood director Bryan Singer threatened us with a lawsuit. I have been surveyed by people who we reported on. My family has been under surveillance. A Republican combat PR firm was enlisted to discredit us. And nevertheless we persist. And we have never been successfully sued for libel or defamation because we care about getting it right. And we take these risks to bring you stories that nobody else is looking at. We take on really big stories and we take on really big and powerful people. And the only way we are able to do that is because our listeners support us. But we have never asked American listeners to support us before because we're called Canada Land. And the idea that Americans would support a Canadian podcast company, to a lot of people, I've been told it's just a joke. They won't do it. I don't think that's true. Our stories are not just for Canadians. The majority of people who listen to the Kopernick affair are American. We are going to be publishing more investigations on this feed on Canadaland Investigates. And by becoming a supporter, you are funding those investigations. And we will give you all the things. We'll give you ad free podcasts, and you'll get to hear it before everybody else. And you'll get bonus content. You'll actually be paying for Dana and Alex to keep reporting on what happens next to Hassan Diab, because this story is not over. It's 399amonth. We want it to be like a coffee to support Canadaland. We want it to be like, set it and forget it. You're never going to regret the price of a coffee to fund this scrappy team of like 15 journalists who want nothing but to tell you an amazing story that would otherwise never be told. I will level with you. It is just a surprise to us that you're even here or Canada Land. We never thought we'd have 100,000 regular American listeners. We are so proud to have you. But we need you to support us the same way we ask our Canadian listeners to support us. And unlike the Canadian listeners, we don't really make much ad money off of our American listeners because we sell mostly Canadian ads. We kind of need this to work. So to get the ball rolling, we have a special offer for the first hundred American listeners to come to canadaland.com investigates and sign up for a year's worth of support. And there's a big discount on that as well. We will ship to you to your home in America, tariffs be damned. A free Canadaland T shirt. Wear it proudly and defiantly. And by the way, though we give our supporters every perk we can imagine, our podcasts are free. We do not pay wall this content. So what you're really paying for when you support us is you're paying for everybody else to get this stuff. And that's how journalism has impacted, because it has reach. We're hoping that just some of you will Support us for $3.99 a month at canadaland.com investigates. Please go do it right now. And thank you.

[Raj Panjabi]

Who's abducting 100,000 children in China each year? And how was a cult where Paedophilia, murder and torture were commonplace, allowed to operate in Chile for nearly four decades. A True Crime Report, a new video podcast from Al Jazeera. We'll investigate these stories from the global south and beyond. True crimes that often haven't reached the headlines in the West. I'm Halim oh Yudin. In each episode, we'll take you to a different country. You'll hear from experts and first hand accounts from those right at the heart of these stories. True Crime Reports. Find us Under Al Jazeera's YouTube channel podcast tab and wherever you get your podcasts. The decision in this 2023 trial was made by a panel of judges. We put in a request to speak to them, but they declined. But the prosecutor, Benjamin Schomb, described to us how decisions are made in this kind of tr Professional.

[Benjamin Chambes]

So in the court, there's one president and four judges. After having heard the defense, all of the witnesses, everything, they then leave to discuss their own opinion on it. Then the president organizes a vote. One on whether the suspect is guilty or not, and then the second one will be on his sentence. Then the court comes back, gives its decision. They listed all of their decisions and how they came to that decision in this 30, 31 page document.

[Raj Panjabi]

On April 21, 2023, the court, president and four judges convened in a room for a full day and voted. Was the vote unanimous?

[Benjamin Chambes]

So there's this idea of secrecy within the court. So they can't actually know that. So they know that it was a majority. They don't know whether it was three judges against two, four against one. In any case, it was a majority.

[Raj Panjabi]

Back in the courtroom, the Attorney General spoke for over an hour as he read out the decision. He started off by defining terrorism and explaining why this attack fell within that definition. He spoke directly to the victims, recognized their pain and their trauma. Then he praised Mark Trevedyk and commended him for all the work he'd done on this case over the years.

[Noah Michaelson]

Then he brought up Hassan Diab, said it was shameful that he had refused to come to France to face trial. And then he went through all the evidence and commented on the testimonies. He noted Noel's testimony, but discredited her answers and said she was biased because she and Hassan shared a past. At one point, the Attorney General needed to pause. He sat down and took a drink of water. In the end, he stated, the exceptional seriousness of the events is reflected in the number of dead and injured and the target, a synagogue and its 320 worshippers. The organization put in place to carry out the attack and the still vivid consequences for the victims who came to give evidence at the hearing almost 43 years after the events. And then he read the guilty, the sentence life imprisonment and an immediate warrant for Hassan Diab's arrest.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Of course, we were very pleased. Also we, the families, had some WhatsApp or email correspondence. We were all very pleased about it. We think that at least some justice was done and it is a move in the right direction. And so for us, the verdict itself was an important statement from the court that say, the victims here are those who were injured and killed, and they were killed in terror attack that was aimed at French citizens who happened to be Jews, nothing else. I mean, of course we would be very pleased to see Diabe extradited and spend the time in jail, but there is some sort of, you know, feeling of closure here.

[Raj Panjabi]

That evening, some of the victims of the attack gathered together at a cafe opposite the courthouse. It wasn't a celebration per se, more a chance to breathe a sigh of relief together. After so many decades, the verdict had finally delivered them some closure.

[Don Pratt]

John and I, we sat in the courtroom and we heard the negative judgment.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I was disgusted with the outcome.

[Don Pratt]

I was in shock. I just couldn't do or say anything.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I felt, on the other hand, it was anticlimactic because I figured this was determined at the outset.

[Raj Panjabi]

When I asked him about it, Hassan Diab's lawyer, William Bourdon, sounded resigned as well.

[Benjamin Chambes]

He said that when, when the verdict came out, when he was sentenced to life in prison, he realized that it was in this kind of situation, it's almost impossible for a lawyer to get their client exonerated because the collective emotion around such a large event, this sort of national trauma after a terrorist attack, means that prosecutors have to look ruthless, they have to find a culprit.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Laplace.

[Noah Michaelson]

Legitime.

[Raj Panjabi]

Legitime, Denis. Au victime, au partis.

[Benjamin Chambes]

And the legitimate place of there being the victims as well in the courtroom, that also puts on an added pressure. So there is kind of desire to have a culprit at any price. And it means that the judges will agree to find someone guilty on the basis of weak evidence in a way that they wouldn't do in a different situation. He thinks the sentence is unfounded, very easy to criticise, and he could see from the beginning of the trial that it was going to go like this.

[Raj Panjabi]

I put this to the prosecutor, Benjamin Shamb. He rejected the idea that they were under any sort of political pressure to find Diab guilty. And insisted that everything followed the proper legal process.

[Noah Michaelson]

But what struck us, talking to people who were there in the court that day, is that none of them were completely satisfied with the verdict. For Hassan Diab and his legal team, this was clearly not the decision they'd hoped for. For the victims, the verdict offered no promise that the man found guilty would ever serve his sentence. And the prosecutors, they had to deliver a sentence to an empty stand.

[Raj Panjabi]

After the trial, Don Pratt and the wild coptee returned home to California disappointed with the decision, but determined to keep fighting for their friend. They both have day jobs, but spend their evenings and weekends moonlighting as the organizers behind Hassan Diab's support committee.

[Unknown Speaker A]

In the beginning, it was like a 247 obsession. It was just all consuming. Over the years, it's gradually changed so that I, you know, I don't think about it all the time, of course, but literally, even after, what, 15 plus years, literally every day I take some time to do something related to the case.

[Noah Michaelson]

Why?

[Unknown Speaker A]

Because I feel we have to keep going. I think we have to keep struggling so that we can succeed, win whatever you want to call it.

[Raj Panjabi]

In this period of stasis, of uncertainty, with a guilty conviction, a life sentence from a French court hanging over Hassan Diab, and the anticipation of a future extradition request to return him to France, the support committee has taken on a secondary, more unofficial role.

[Unknown Speaker A]

To some extent, the meetings are also just a chance to commiserate and just talk about the situation and remind ourselves of what's happened over so many years. Hassan will sometimes, you know, actually take 10 minutes to go off and say something about the situation with the handwriting or with the fingerprints. I think to some extent, it's a little bit of therapy for him to have those group meetings, because it can commiserate. We can all commiserate.

[Nawal Khopti]

So you see these people, you see, you know, they are still there for the last 15 years. Can you imagine 15 years, we still meet either once per week or twice, and they give you some hope and wow, these people don't give up. So they remind you of there's something hopeful in this world or something, as they say, Mahmoud Darwees, there's something worthy on this land, on this earth.

[Raj Panjabi]

You can tell from speaking to Don Pratt and others in the support group that the case has taken a toll on them.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Many of our folks, especially in Ottawa, the case has aged all of us, but some of them are really old now.

[Noah Michaelson]

Hassan is older too, physically and emotionally impacted by all he's been through. He remains vigilant Waiting for the next shoe to drop. Still, he tries to enjoy the little things about his life in Ottawa.

[Raj Panjabi]

Do you think of yourself as a happy person these days?

[Nawal Khopti]

Well, when I look at the kids, mostly I see myself as a happy person. Especially, you know, when we play football. Though they are getting stronger than me, especially. Jana is becoming super strong. I couldn't beat her yesterday. She won against me in the football in the park. But Chad, I still can control him. I can win against him. So they make your life much, much nicer. Or much different too.

[Raj Panjabi]

When he's not with his kids, Hassan fills his days with things he's loved to do since childhood. Playing football, reading, hiking and swimming.

[Nawal Khopti]

Sometimes I teach. Next semester I'm teaching a course, what's called Social justice in Action.

[Raj Panjabi]

Is that at Carlton?

[Nawal Khopti]

At Carlton, in the fall.

[Raj Panjabi]

Would you say your life has gone back to normal?

[Nawal Khopti]

No, never. You know you can't. Your brain has already been infested with everything you went through in the last 15, 16 years.

[Noah Michaelson]

At the start of this series, we posed a Is Hassan Diab guilty, responsible for the bombing of the Copernic street synagogue? Or is he a scapegoat, convicted to bring closure to a decades old crime widely seen as a stain on French history?

[Raj Panjabi]

By now, we've been working on this story for a year and a half. We know what we've read in all the documents and court records we could get our hands on. We've been to Canada and to France. We've interviewed dozens of people, literally everyone who had talked to us. We've told you which parts of the story we can verify and which parts we can't.

[Noah Michaelson]

But there's only one person who knows with absolute certainty if Hassan Diab is guilty or innocent. And we've spent hours talking to him. He's granted us multiple interviews without limitations on his time or on what questions we could ask.

[Raj Panjabi]

Hassan Diab's answers to us have been consistent with the court records we've dug up and the other interviews we've conducted. And in the absence of any evidence that directly links him to the night of the attack, we can only come to a conclusion based on the evidence and testimonies available to us. And all these years later, the opinion of the Canadian judge who presided over his extradition hearings still seems correct. The evidence that was used to arrest Hassan Diab in 2008 and to extradite him in 2014 was circumstantial and weak.

[Noah Michaelson]

But it was this same evidence that was used to convict him in 2023. The only material evidence that was ever brought up in court in nearly two decades. The fingerprints and the handprint were not a match for Hassan Diab.

[Raj Panjabi]

None of this means that Hassan Diab is innocent. It's just hard to see how the evidence available adds up to the conclusion, to the verdict that he was guilty.

[Noah Michaelson]

For the victims, this trial in 2023 did offer a sense, finally, that justice had prevailed. But it did not close the book on the Copernic synagogue attack. Because the debate rages on. Hassan Diab is still in Canada. He's convicted of murder, but living freely. A walking contradiction.

[Raj Panjabi]

Except that he isn't free. Not really. His fate is inextricably tied to an unknowable question about where he was the night of October 3, 1980. With an international warrant out for his arrest, Hassan Diab lives with the constant dread that another SWAT team will arrive outside his door and the fear that Canada will follow through on another request from France to extradite him. He'd be right back at the start again.

[Nawal Khopti]

So that's the dilemma, and that's the sword above your head waiting to fall. That's why I called it the limbo.

[Noah Michaelson]

Consider the absurdity of Hassan Diab, a.

[Hassan Diab]

Professor of social justice at Carleton University, who just so happens to be a.

[Noah Michaelson]

Convicted terrorist by France.

[Raj Panjabi]

This is an unconscionable move from Carlton University in Ottawa. A few weeks before we recorded this episode, a Jewish advocacy group issued a statement calling for Carleton University to terminate Hassan Diab's teaching contract. They wrote, the university's decision to welcome a convicted terrorist onto its campus and into its classrooms is impossible to comprehend. This was the first time many people had heard about Hassan Diab. Some were outraged.

[Noah Michaelson]

Global news headlines followed posts across social media. A far right media outlet hired a van to park at the edge of campus with a billboard that read, Hassan Diab convicted of bombing a synagogue. Teaching at Carleton University.

[Hassan Diab]

It's a frosty morning and the students of Carleton University are filing in. And I'm astonished to learn that one of the professors at Carleton is named Hassan Diab. He was convicted by a French court of terrorism. He was convicted of blowing up a.

[Noah Michaelson]

At one point, an email dropped into Hassan Diab's university inbox. He told us about it on a zoom call.

[Nawal Khopti]

The subject is, your day is close. We know exactly where you live and where you socialize. We also have full and detailed info of your family members. You have five days. That is 220 hours to return to France to stand trial. Otherwise, your life clock will start. Clocking at an unprecedented rate.

[Raj Panjabi]

His lawyer advised him to call the police after this one, which he did. They told him to stay alert, to lock his doors and windows, and to call 911 if anything happened.

[Noah Michaelson]

In a matter of days, Hassan Diab's life was again thrown into chaos. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who once stated that what happened to Hassan Diab never should have happened, is now completely silent on the matter and soon he'll be out of office.

[Raj Panjabi]

But his political rival Pierre Poliev, the leader of Canada's Conservative Party, has been anything but silent on Hassan Diab's case. He seized upon the angry media reports and posted on social media saying, quote, why hasn't he been extradited to France to face justice? Is Justin Trudeau refusing France's extradition request?

[Noah Michaelson]

Hassan Diab's case has even caught the attention of Elon Musk, one of the most influential men in the world. In January, Musk reposted PolyAv's remarks, asking a mass murderer is living free as a professor in Canada. More than 21 million people have seen that post. Post Shortly after this, Carleton University stated publicly that Hassan Diab, who is a part time professor, is no longer employed there. But when we contacted the chair of his department at Carleton, he told us Hassan Diab was not terminated.

[Raj Panjabi]

Instead, his teaching contract was always due to end on December 31, 2024. The chair also said that he can't speak for Carleton University, but his department's relationship with Hassan hadn't changed and that he's welcome to apply for contract positions in the future.

[Noah Michaelson]

Pierre Paliev is widely expected to replace Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister in the next election, which could be called at any time. If he does become Prime Minister and France pursues a second extradition request, his government will have the final say on it.

[Nawal Khopti]

I have to just be careful, I look around the street is who's who. You know, it's like you are living in this constant fear, like who will jump from a tree? Sometimes I look at the trees up there or the bushes or where I go do my jogging in the morning, so I have to change a path and stuff like that.

[Noah Michaelson]

If he is extradited, and even though he was already convicted in absentia, Hassan Diab would face another trial in France.

[Nawal Khopti]

It's not easy. It's like waiting for the ghost sometimes to appear from somewhere.

[Raj Panjabi]

For some of those who believe Hassan Diab is guilty, the knowledge he's living in limbo like this is at least a small consolation.

[Noah Michaelson]

But for Hassan Diab, six years of extradition hearings under strict bail conditions, more than three years of prison time, and nearly two decades of campaign efforts have amounted to this. Not freedom nor a return to how things were in the past, and all because of a crime he maintains he had nothing to do with.

[Raj Panjabi]

At this point, even some of his most long standing supporters, like Don Pratt, have lost hope that this will be resolved for good, that they'll all just get to move on one day.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Our big concern is a change in government and finding that the political will is there now to appease the French. You know, realizing that they've made a terrible mistake, we've kind of given up on that.

[Raj Panjabi]

Now their role is to be persistent and to do everything they can to stop things from getting any worse for Hassan Diab. But of course this is out of their control.

[Unknown Speaker A]

We're going to have this thing till the day we die. It's just never going to go away. The case will bury us all.

[Raj Panjabi]

Thank you for listening to the Kopernick Affair. We'll be following this story as it continues and we hope to bring you updates in the future. This series was a production of Canadaland in partnership with House of Many Windows. The series was written and produced by me, Alex Atak and Dana Boulouut. Our editor is Judy Shapiro. Additional production by Nour Rez Ruyeh. Additional research, production and translation support by Katherine Bennett Sound design and mixing by Rezn 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 Canadaland's publisher and editor. If you can't wait to find out what happens next, become a [e-mail] join to listen to every episode of the Copenhagen Affair early and ad free right now. You'll also be helping vital independent journalism along with the way. You can also listen early and ad free by subscribing to the Canadaland beyond channel on Apple Podcasts or on Amazon Music included with Prime. Thank you for listening. If you want to help, the best thing you can do is to spread the word, let people know about the show, share it on social and encourage people to support work like ours. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts.

[Noah Michaelson]

Here's a show that we recommend.

[Raj Panjabi]

Have you ever wondered if there is.

[Nawal Khopti]

A dark side to your neighbor? Your boss? The delivery driver? These seemingly ordinary people walk among us and sometimes they harbor the darkest of secrets. The award winning podcast they Walk Among Us has returned for its milestone 10th season.

[Raj Panjabi]

The show opens with a chilling two.

[Nawal Khopti]

Part investigation into a lesser known serial killer. In 1986, Kenneth Erskine, dubbed the Stockwell Strangler, terrorised London's elderly. A drifter with no fixed address, Erskine.

[Raj Panjabi]

Proved eerily difficult to track.

[Nawal Khopti]

Join us as we uncover the haunting stories of his victims, trace the investigation that finally brought him to justice, and examine the lasting impact of his crimes. Follow they walk among us Anywhere you listen to podcasts.

[Noah Michaelson]

ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.