STORY: "One year after extradition to France, Ottawa academic still pushes for freedom," by reporter Chris Cobb, published by the Ottawa Citizen on November 9, 2014.
GIST: A year after being extradited to France to face terrorism charges, Ottawa academic Hassan Diab remains in a Paris jail preparing for a major court challenge that could prove key to his efforts to have murder charges against him withdrawn. The 61-year-old was whisked away to France last November, hours after the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal against his extradition. Diab, a Lebanese-born Canadian citizen, has since been charged by French prosecutors with murder and attempted murder in the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in downtown Paris. French authorities are still investigating his alleged role in the bombing and have not yet decided whether to commit him for trial. That decision now lies with recently appointed prosecuting judge Jean-Marc Herbaut, who took over the case in September. On Nov. 19, Diab’s Paris lawyers will appear before a panel of three other judges in an effort to have intelligence evidence in the case withdrawn on the basis that it is unreliable and flawed. Canadian federal prosecutors, who acted for the French government during Diab’s extradition hearing, were forced to withdraw the intelligence because they didn’t know its source and couldn’t prove that it had not been gleaned from torture. If the lawyers’ bid is successful, prosecutors would be left with several other pieces of evidence, the most important of which is analysis of writing taken from a Paris hotel register. Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger ordered Diab’s extradition in 2011 after saying that he found the handwriting evidence “illogical, very problematic, convoluted, very confusing with conclusions that are suspect.” Maranger said that if a fair trial were held in Canada, it would be unlikely Diab would be convicted, but the judge added that the low threshold of Canadian extradition law left him with no choice but to hand the academic over to France. A decision on the Nov. 19 application will take about a month."
The entire story can be found at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com; Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
