Front Burner - How a failed terrorism case derailed one Canadian's life

Episode Date: July 30, 2019

In 2007, Hassan Diab was an unassuming sociology lecturer at Carleton University, when he was suddenly told French authorities were investigating him for committing a terrorist act in Paris in 1980. Diab has always claimed innocence — but the revelation was just the beginning of an 12-year ordeal, including a lengthy court case, extradition to France and three years spent in prison. An external review was ordered into his case, but Diab and his legal team are less than satisfied with its findings. On Front Burner, CBC senior reporter David Cochrane breaks down one of the most intensely fought extradition cases in Canadian history.

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With secret labs and expert guests, co-hosts Oz Wallachian and Cara Price, talk about how new technology is changing everything, from falling in love to diagnosing cancer. Listen to Sleepwalkers on your favorite podcast app or wherever you get FrontBurner. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Today, the case of Hassan Diab. He's a Lebanese-born Canadian citizen who had his world turned upside down in 2007. That's the year he found out he was suspected by French authorities

of perpetrating a deadly terrorist attack in Paris nearly 30 years earlier. The next 10 years of Diab's life would involve a lengthy court case, extradition to France, and three years spent in prison. It has been 10 years of tarnished reputation, anguish, unbelievable stress, significant legal expenses, and imprisonment away from my family. This is a case that would expose some very real questions about the Canadian extradition process, which is why an independent review into Dieb's case was called. The results of that review, well, they're now public.

Today, CBC senior reporter David Cochran is back. He broke big parts of this story. He's going to take us through it from the beginning. And we're going to talk about how Dieb and his supporters feel about the results of this new review. This is Frontburner. So in 2007, Hassan Diab was working as a sessional lecturer at Carleton University, and one day after he'd wrapped up his lectures,

a journalist from Le Figaro in France approached him seeking comment. They wanted his reaction to the fact that France was investigating him for a notorious bombing outside of a Paris synagogue from 27 years ago. And this is the first time that he's ever heard about his alleged involvement in this bombing? Yeah, this is the first time he's learned anything about it. You know, he had moved from Lebanon, studied in the United States, had moved to Canada, was trying to start an academic career. And 27 years after a bomb went off in Paris, a bomb went off in Hassan Diab's life.

It was never the same from this point. And tell me more about this bombing, this 1980 bombing. It's one of the most notorious terrorist attacks in French history. It was the first large-scale anti-Semitic attack on French soil after the Second World War. And what happened is a motorcycle with saddlebags packed with explosives was parked outside a synagogue at the time of a Jewish religious service, and it exploded and killed four people and wounded more than 40. The synagogue had a glass ceiling, and it shattered from the blast and collapsed down on the congregation. The service ran late. If they had left the synagogue on time, more people would have been

on the street, and more people would have been hit by the bomb. So the images we looked at and the coverages we looked at in reporting this story, the carnage is unbelievable. The damage that was done was unbelievable. We came out of the synagogue and saw this horrible scene. People lying on the ground, some wounded, others dead. There was blood, broken glass, cars on fire. It was a war scene. Then I saw the body of that poor boy, Philippe Bissou, in pieces. But then when we met Hassan Diab and you meet this soft-spoken

sociologist. What would you say to the victims of that crime, who are still want someone to blame? What would you say to those people? I don't think they want someone to blame. They want somebody who's responsible for that to blame. The two events just did not link. And it turns out, despite

the investigation and the claims of French investigators, the facts didn't link either. I know we're going to unpack that during this conversation. Let's start with what led this French reporter to even approach Diab in the first place in 2007. Like, why do French authorities believe this Carleton University professor is the terrorist that they're looking for? Yeah, so the Rue Copernic tragedy is seared into the mindset of the French people. It's not quite a 9-11 scale event, but it might be an Oklahoma City.

It might be the Boston Marathon bombing, things that people are aware of and that are commemorated regularly and known. There was a massive investigation to try to find the perpetrators of this. They had a suspect in 1980, a man by the name of Alexander Panadryu, which turns out to be a fake name. It wasn't a real person. But this Panadryu person was arrested in Paris in the days leading up to the bombing for trying to shoplift pliers at a hardware store and had been seen by the owner of the hardware store. And then they spent a night in the run-up to the bombing for trying to shoplift pliers at a hardware store and had been seen by the owner of

the hardware store. And then they spent a night in the run-up to the bombing in a French hotel with a prostitute who had also seen this Alexander Panadryou character. And they got composite sketches of what Panadryou looked like. And no photo when he was arrested. No, no photos and no fingerprinting in a conventional sense like would have happened if they were arrested today. So they had a sketch and they had a name, but they had no leads beyond that. And then a lot changed in the world after 1980, number one being the Berlin Wall coming down. And that opened up a whole trove of secret files of the East German police. They had been monitoring Palestinian extremists, and in those files was the name Hassan Diab, and it was connected to this 1980 bombing.

Now, the name Hassan Diab is a very common one in Lebanon, but the Hassan Diab who was teaching in Ottawa, pictures of him from 1980 looked sort of like the witness sketches from the prostitute and the hardware store employee of Alexander Panadryu. So they had a lead, but then they needed to build a physical link, and they settled on handwriting analysis. Panadryu signed the police statement when he was arrested. He filled out a hotel registration card when he checked into this hotel. He filled out a hotel registration card when he checked into this hotel.

So they gathered up handwriting samples of Hassan Diab's to compare to Panadraou's. And their experts concluded these are similar. This is a link. So they had witnesses. They had a sketch. Then they had German files that pointed to Diab and then handwriting that linked Diab back to Alexander Panadraou. The problem was is that that handwriting evidence would be fatally flawed. So I want to talk about these handwriting samples with you in a moment,

but obviously the French authorities think they've got the right guy because they make a request to extradite Hassan Diab in 2008. And we're going to get into what happened during that case. But first, you know, Diab maintained his innocence this whole time. And I know that he fought this. This was a six-year ordeal. What is his life like during this six years? So you can imagine being arrested in 2008, seven years after 9-11, for setting off a bomb outside a synagogue in Paris

is going to derail your life. He's basically shocked. He is a law-abiding citizen and has been all his life. All of a sudden, overnight, he's dragged in chain and handcuffed, and he's now going to spend a couple of days in a common jail. He's taken into custody and initially denied bail. They have to fight for a bail hearing, and eventually his release is secured.

But he's released under extremely strict conditions. He has to wear an ankle bracelet that he has to pay for, thousands of dollars a month to pay for his freedom. And he has a bunch of sureties, people who are vouching for his good behavior, who offer up their houses and their wealth as collateral. But someone has to be with him at all times when he's released. I know reading your reporting, there's one example of him, you know, trying to take his daughter to the hospital. Right. He's starting a family with his wife, Rania Tafali, at this point in time. And his daughter, Jenna, was born while all of this was happening. And Hassan has an ankle

bracelet on. Rania Tafali is one of his sureties. He has to be with her at all times. When Jenna was a newborn, they have a medical crisis. Her temperature starts to drop drastically. She is days and weeks old at this point in time. It's that very critical stage for any new parent. And he needs to get her to the hospital. They drive there, but for Rania to take Jenna into the hospital

and for Hassan to park the car, they have to separate. So to bring his wife and daughter to the hospital and for her to get emergency medical care, he has to potentially violate the terms of his bail,

risk having his freedom rescinded, what limited freedom he had, and then risk forfeiting all of that wealth that all of these people from his support network have put up as collateral for his good behavior and good conduct. So he ended up not only having his freedom restricted, he lost his job at Carleton. He was not allowed to teach. B'nai B' Barith issued a statement condemning Carleton for employing a suspected terrorist. He lost his career. His reputation was tarnished. They burned through all of their savings to pay for the legal defense that they were mounting in this. I lost all incomes, some savings evaporated during the process. And he couldn't do simple things like go to the park with his kid by himself.

And while all of this is happening, the extradition hearing itself is taking place. And tell me how this unfolds. Yeah, the extradition case of Hassan Diab is one of the most intensely litigated extradition cases in Canadian history. It might even be number one. And there's a lot of dynamics at play. So initially, Hassan Diab just finds a lawyer online, and it's not going particularly well. And at some point, he is connected with a lawyer named Donald Bain. And Don Bain is one of the preeminent and most prominent lawyers in Ottawa,

and he brings all of that to weight in the extradition hearing. I would say of this case, it's clearly the most heart-wrenching in terms of what I saw it doing to Dr. Dieppe's family. And he's up against a guy named Claude Lefrancois, who is a senior counsel for the International Assistance Group, which is a specialized department of the Department of Justice. They handle extradition. They are Canada's extradition lawyers. So France makes a request. extradition. They are Canada's extradition lawyers. So France makes a request. Canada appoints one of its lawyers to act on France's behalf. So France, as I said, started to try to build a connection between Hassan Diab and this Alexander Penedrayou character, who they believe to be the prime suspect behind the bombing. The only physical evidence they have are handwriting samples,

and their experts say there are enough similarities that this is a link. The problem is, it's a piece of junk. The handwriting comparisons they used were not Hassan Dieb's handwriting. They were forms, academic forms, when he applied for like grad school and immigration forms when he applied to get into the United States. He signed them. His ex-wife filled them out. So wouldn't that be enough to just throw this case out completely? So here's where it gets really interesting. And this is where the allegations of an overzealous extradition prosecution by the Canadian Department of Justice come into play. So it's the fall of 2009 and the extradition hearing is getting ready to start. Donald Bain has hired handwriting experts to look at the French evidence, and they have realized that they used a tainted sample set. It's not even Hassan Diab's handwriting.

They prepare their own expert reports for Diab's defense. Bain walks in, goes to Lefrancois. The government lawyer says, look, your handwriting is not reliable. We are going to impeach the credibility of this. They present this evidence to the Canadian government, assuming this will make everything go away. Instead, what happens is the government accepts the information, asks for an adjournment in the trial process, and then fires a memo off to France, warning them that the case is about to fall apart. And if you don't replace the

handwriting analysis with a new handwriting analysis, Hassan Diab is most likely going to walk free. And why are they being criticized for that? Well, they're being criticized for it because Bain argues that this is not Canada's role. France should have done a proper investigation with proper evidence and sent a proper case to Canada to argue the extradition. And they clearly did not. The Canadian lawyers then go into court and proceed to ask and get a series of adjournments and delays while France

does this work. And throughout this process, the judge and the defense are saying, why are you delaying? Aren't you going to proceed? What is going on? And the Canadian lawyers never really give straight answers. They just say, look, France is looking for new evidence. I can't imagine what they might table. I don't know what they might present. And they buy time for six months until yet another handwriting analysis is done, this time using Hassan Diab's actual handwriting. And lo and behold, the new expert concludes, yes, this also matches the handwriting of the mythical Alexander Penedriou. So it was directing France to save France's case and then buying time in court without being completely candid as to what you were doing.

And there's more. the handwriting evidence, Canadian justice lawyers also fingerprinted Hassan Diab, were sent samples of the fingerprints obtained in the French investigation, and there was no match. That information was never shared with Hassan Diab or his lawyer and never presented in court. Every identifiable fingerprint on that statement excluded Dr. Diab. It was not him. It was conclusive. Because again, this is an extradition hearing. This is not a criminal trial where you would be forced to disclose this in a criminal proceeding in Canada. An extradition hearing is not about innocence or guilt. It's about whether France has gotten over the bar to have a Canadian citizen sent to France to stand trial. And that's all it was meant to determine. And when ultimately ordering the extradition of Hassan Diab to France,

Judge Robert Moranger said the handwriting evidence is weak, the entire case against Hassan Diab is weak, but that doesn't matter. Under extradition law, the threshold has been met, and I must, I am compelled to order him to leave. And Jamie, the most egregious thing as an outsider is, okay, the handwriting is weak, the fingerprint is weak. Hassan Diab had an alibi. He wasn't in Paris on October 3rd, 1980. He was in Lebanon, in Beirut, writing university exams. But he was never allowed to table that in the extradition hearing because you're not entitled to present defense evidence.

In a pre-recorded videotape, Diab vowed to continue his fight against what he calls an unfair process of extradition. I will take every legal opportunity to clear my name and I look forward to the day in which I can reclaim my life. All of this, you know, in addition to the allegations that the Justice Department overstepped here, but all of this other stuff raised a lot of questions and criticism that this act, this extradition act we have itself,

sets too low a threshold for extraditing Canadian citizens, right? Yeah, this has been one of the central issues in this, and that the defense coming from the Department of Justice and extradition experts who are taking the government side is that this is not meant to be a trial. An extradition hearing is not meant to be a substitute for a trial. And if you have problems with handwriting evidence or fingerprint evidence or an alibi, those are issues to be dealt with at trial once you are sent to the country, say France or the United States or wherever. And the argument being is that Canada owes it to its extradition partners to do this process fairly and quickly to facilitate justice in foreign countries because we will make extradition requests to have people return to

Canada. We did this with Luca McNatta. On the other side of this are Hassan Diab and an army of defense lawyers who simply think that the civil liberty bar is just too low here for people to get over, that you can have an alibi and bad evidence against you and still end up spending 38 months in a French jail for a crime you did not commit. So let's talk about that French jail because he spends six years fighting extradition in Canada and then he moves to France for what I would think would be a trial. But instead he ends up spending 38 months in jail. Why? it all away to the Supreme Court. They lose, and the conservative justice minister of the time, Rob Nicholson, signs the extradition committal, and Hassan Diab is taken into custody to be sent to France. He's taken into custody just days before his daughter Jenna's second birthday. He's sent to France on her second birthday. A couple of months after he's there, his wife, Rania, gives birth to their son, Jad. He sees his son for the first time during a visit to the French prison.

It was the most difficult period. And then you have one birthday after another. His first, his second, her third, her second, her third, her fourth, and her fifth. I miss them all. What more can you lose? If you lose these things, there's nothing left in life. The prison he is in is called Fleury-Mérogis. It's France's biggest prison. And it is a hotbed of radicalization for Islamic extremists.

This is where the people who did the Charlie Hebdo attack met and radicalized and planned the attack. One of the perpetrators of the Bataclan attack was kept in a cell just several dozen meters from Hassan Diab. So he's a small guy, he's a diminutive fellow, he's an Ottawa sociologist, and he ends up in this prison and ends up getting put in sort of a special ward with sex offenders and some white-collar criminals sort of for their own protection.

They all said, what are you doing here? Many times protection. They all said, what are you doing here? Many times they kept asking me, what are you doing here? You should be back in Canada, you know. He is in his cell for 22 to 23 hours a day. He gets an hour of exercise time outside in an outdoor yard where he can take eight steps before he hits a wall, turns right, takes four steps, hits a wall, turns right, takes four steps, hits a wall, and then just keeps doing that to go in a loop to get his exercise. Dandelions

grow in this yard and he picks them and brings them into his cell and tries to keep them alive in whatever water he has for as long as he can. And then when they start to die, he eats them for the nutrients. And in this time, he talked about contemplating suicide, but he thought about all the people who supported him. How are you not consumed with anger? If I get angry, really, what will happen? I think I will kill myself, like, just like that. What can you do? What else?

There's nothing else. Do you commit suicide? No. Because you have, you know, these wonderful guys and the family and the kids. Do you solve anything? And the answer was constantly no. So I know he was released in January of 2018 by French authorities.

How did that come about? So France has a very different judicial system than Canada. The judges lead the investigation and then decide whether to go with a prosecution. And so this is why he spent so much time in prison. As you were saying, he's sent there. You expect he's going to go to trial right away because the French investigation is over. Canada's extradition laws say that you are not to be extradited for investigation. You're only to be extradited for trial.

This was raised by Bain at every step of the process, saying that Hassan Diab is going to languish in a foreign jail if we send him over. And the Ontario Court of Appeal wrote in its rejection of Bain's arguments that we are not convinced that he will simply languish in a foreign cell. Turns out that's what happened. They did this investigation. He started cooperating with them and gave them a lot of leads, including the fact that he was in Beirut on the day this bomb went off. Along the way, these judges felt that the case against Diab was weak and actually ordered that he be released.

But French prosecutors appealed this every step of the way. This happened seven or eight times, that the judges who were investigating Diab's case wanted him to get bail in France. And each time the prosecutors stepped in. But eventually the French investigation gets to the point where they just conclude, look, he has an alibi. The physical evidence does not work. They found more than 20 fingerprint samples throughout the various stages of investigation and kept comparing it to Dieppe. He said he was fingerprinted so many times he thought the ink would never come off.

These details, they feel excruciating to listen to, especially knowing what Hassan was going through. One of the reasons why we're talking today is because last week the results of an independent review were released. And what did that review ultimately find? Yeah, so Hassan Diab and his supporters, groups like Amnesty International, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, a lot of civil society groups and unions, they want a full public inquiry led by a judge with subpoena power and the right to cross-examine witnesses. That's their red line. They are not moving off that request. Right, but this isn't what that was, right?

Right. They've been asking for this. What they got instead was an external review of the case done by Murray Siegel, who's a former deputy attorney general of Ontario. And he was asked to do a review of the case to come up with lessons learned. Hassan Diab and his lawyer boycotted it immediately. They felt the terms of reference were too narrow and too rigid and designed to give the Department of Justice a full-scale exoneration. And that's essentially what Murray Siegel did. He reviewed the case. He said all of the allegations of overzealous prosecution, misleading of the court, and withholding of fingerprint evidence, all of the allegations of wrongdoing there from Diab and his lawyers and his supporters were without merit. I found that the Department of Justice Council acted

totally professionally and ethically. I believe that the Extradition Act is working. The system worked exactly as it should, but Hassan Diab still spent 38 months in prison. So everything went right, but Hassan Diab was still terribly wronged. How do you reconcile these two things? I'm thinking of Justin Trudeau, who said last year that this never should have happened. Yeah. So what does that mean? It never should have happened. Does it mean he never should have been extradited to France? Or does it mean he never should have sat in a French cell for 38 months. But this is the problem. Siegel concludes everything was done right,

and this has been the Department of Justice's argument from the beginning. And when you look at it in a plain black and white reading of how extradition works, that conclusion holds up. Hassan Diab's point is that the system is the problem. This is a report that excuses all the conduct of the Department of Justice International Assistance Group lawyers who did this case. It defends the lack of disclosure of evidence of innocence. It endorses all of the troubling aspects of the current extradition law and system in Canada. And for Hassan Diab and his family and his supporters who still think that the system is broken, where do they go from here? When Diab came back, people asked if he was going to sue and if he wanted compensation. And he said,

I don't want any penny from the taxpayers in Canada. All he wanted was the inquiry to get answers and the review of the Extradition Act to get changes to make sure what happened to him doesn't happen to anyone ever again. The frustration at their reaction news conference to the Siegel report was obvious, and they made clear that for the first time they're seriously thinking about a lawsuit. One of the questions I asked Murray Siegel, Jamie, was, you've made 14 recommendations. If these had been in place 10, 11 years ago when this started with Diab, what would have stopped them from being sent to France? And he said,

I'm not sure it would have prevented him being sent. The law worked. What might have changed is Canada might have done a better job of providing consular support and keeping on France's case to ensure that he didn't just sit in that cell for 38 months and got his judgment day much, much sooner. David, as always, thank you so much. You're welcome. So just quickly, I wanted to mention something that got cut out of the conversation with David today. We covered so much ground and we couldn't keep everything. But talking about extradition, it's really hard to not think of the case of Huawei exec Meng Wanzhou.

I asked David what effect, if any, the results of this review would have on that. He said he thinks people high up in the Canadian government probably breathed a sigh of relief here. Had this report actually pointed out fatal flaws in Canada's extradition process, well, that would have given China ammunition to further call what's happening to Hmong bogus. Something to think about there. That's all for today. A big thank you to Michelle Shepard, Matt Brega, and Chris Berube for hosting while I was on vacation. We will see you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.

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