France's administrative court has thrown out a lawsuit launched by Montreal's Lawee family, who allege the French embassy in Baghdad has been occupying their family's ancestral home, rent-free, for more than fifty years.

The Paris-based body ruled against the Jewish family on Feb. 2. in a printed decision, after an in-person hearing last month, The court said it's denying the Canadian family's case because France has immunity for acts done on foreign soil–and because the old lease was signed in the 1960s in the city of Baghdad, so local Iraqi laws apply.

The case has garnered international headlines because it involves a much wider story: the historic injustice done to nearly a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who were forced to flee their regimes' growing anti-Israel sentiment after 1948. They were stripped of their citizenship and their assets were seized.

The CJN's flagship podcast "North Star" has been following the story since last year, and on today's episode, host Ellin Bessner sits down with Philip Khazzam, the Montreal businessman on a mission to seek justice for what happened to his grandfather's beloved mansion.

Related stories

Read the French administrative court’s Feb. 2 decision in The CJN.
Learn why Philip Khazzam launched his $30 million legal challenge against France for unpaid rent and damages last year, in The CJN .
Hear the survival stories of Canadians of Iraqi descent who survived the “Fraud” pogrom against Baghdad Jews in 1941, in The CJN.

Credits

Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
Music: Bret Higgins

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Montreal family won't give up legal fight on behalf of expelled Iraqi Jews from 1950s