PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I have devoted numerous posts to Canada's extradition of Hassan Diab to France as an alleged terrorist. We now know - as I suspected from the outset - that Prof. Diab is an utterly innocent man whose life and family were torn apart by Canada's eagerness to extradite Diab in spite of the obvious weaknesses of the French application which were revealed during the extradition hearing. This Blog was most concerned about deficiencies in the forensic evidence provided to Canada by the French authorities. As Scott Newark notes in his commentary, "There were obvious deficiencies in the evidence linking Diab to the attack, which France said was available to justify prosecuting Diab for the terrorism offenses. This included proof of his whereabouts at the time, photographs, fingerprints and an alleged handwriting analysis match which Justice Maranger ultimately relied on, and which the Court of Appeal accepted, to approve Diab's extradition. In an unusual display of candor, the judge also noted the low legal standard that required his extradition order and specifically commented that the evidence was "'...weak, convoluted and confusing' and would likely be too weak to convict Diab if he were tried in Canada." Scott Newark informs us that we now know from CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) revelations that, "rather than presenting the summaries of the French evidence against Diab, Justice lawyers explicitly told French officials to get a new handwriting analysis done to address the defects in what they had presented. This was not disclosed to the court. Even more alarming is that the Justice Department lawyer asked French officials to supply fingerprints of the bombing suspect so that the RCMP could match them against Diab's fingerprints. The RCMP did the analysis but found the crime scene fingerprints did not match with Diab's. All of this clearly relevant and exculpatory evidence was concealed from the court by the Justice Department lawyers. The court also was never advised why there were several adjournment requests, which were offered to allow France to complete additional handwriting analysis. Deliberately withholding exculpatory evidence is not only a breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights, but also a violation of traditional disclosure obligations and professional standards for prosecutors." Scott Newark says, "Hopefully, the Government of Canada will have the integrity and resolve to learn from the Diab case and take appropriate corrective actions, including at the Department of Justice." To the contrary, I don't have confidence that the Government of Canada will take "appropriate actions" behind closed doors. Instead, Ottawa should set up an independent public inquiry - with the power to subpoena and call witnesses - to get to the heart of what occurred, and make recommendations, including generous compensation to Hassan Diab for his ordeal.
Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog. (PS: Kudos to Ottawa lawyer Donald Bayne for his outstanding legal work - and to Ottawa Citizen Reporter Chris Cobb) for his exemplary, steadfast reporting on the case.)
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COMMENTARY: "Alarming revelations in Diab extradition case confirm the need for changes," published by IPT News on May 18, 2018," by Scott Newark, published by IPT News on May 18, 2018. (Scott Newark is a former Alberta Crown Prosecutor who has also served as Executive Officer of the Canadian Police Association, Vice Chair of the Ontario Office for Victims of Crime, Director of Operations for Investigative Project on Terrorism and as a Security Policy Advisor to the governments of Ontario and Canada. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the TRSS Program in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University.)
GIST: "Earlier this year, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported
on the strange case of Professor Hassan Diab, who was returned to
Canada following his 2014 extradition to France on terrorism charges.
Diab is a Lebanese-Canadian citizen who French investigators alleged was
the mastermind behind a 1980 terrorist attack on a Paris synagogue that
killed four people. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested
him in 2008 following a formal extradition request from France. Diab denied the allegations and offered to cooperate with French
investigators if the questioning took place in Canada and not in France.
France declined his offer. This noncooperation proved to be important
because France has a different criminal justice process than Canada. Its
judges are actively involved in a criminal investigation and
decision-making process about whether charges should be laid or not.
Diab faced no charges when France made its extradition request to
Canada, thus the request was really to return him for investigation and
not prosecution, which – after three years in custody – never happened. Following his arrest, Canadian Justice Department lawyers presented
the case to Justice Robert Maranger, who applied Canada's Extradition
Act to determine if the evidentiary standard for transfer was met. There were questions from the outset about the sufficiency and
reliability of the French evidence against Diab. Under Canada's
Extradition Act, however, the Canadian prosecutor did not present the
actual evidence to the court, instead producing a summary of what they
were advised would be presented at trial in France. Additionally, the
standard of evidence to approve extradition was not proof beyond a
reasonable doubt as required at trial, but instead the much lower
standard for committal to trial – which is whether a properly instructed
jury could reasonably return a guilty verdict. There were obvious deficiencies in the evidence linking Diab to the
attack, which France said was available to justify prosecuting Diab for
the terrorism offenses. This included proof of his whereabouts at the
time, photographs, fingerprints and an alleged handwriting analysis
match which Justice Maranger ultimately relied on, and which the Court
of Appeal accepted, to approve Diab's extradition. In an unusual display of candor, the judge also noted the low legal
standard that required his extradition order and specifically commented
that the evidence was "'...weak, convoluted and confusing' and would
likely be too weak to convict Diab if he were tried in Canada." Following his return to Canada after three years of imprisonment but without
prosecution, Diab, his high-profile lawyer and different support groups
have called for a public inquiry into the facts of his case and the
existing extradition process to prevent a re-occurrence of what happened
to him. The earlier Investigative Project analysis identified several
issues that merit consideration including: Improving international cooperation to enhance investigative capabilities and subject questioning prior to a formal extradition request; Permitting requirement of specified procedural action from requesting the nation where different systems are involved; Permitting the Court/Minister to receive evidentiary exculpatory
submissions from the accused on specific evidentiary issues and require
requesting state to address them prior to extradition being ordered; Clarifying the evidentiary standard for extradition (committal)
including consideration of unreliability of evidence revealed by cross
examination or evidence from the accused; Interestingly, Canada's Global Affairs Minister Christa Freeland has
publicly signaled her support for such a review while Diab and his
lawyer have complained that Canadian Justice Minister Jody
Wilson-Raybould has ignored requests for a meeting to review how the
Justice lawyers handled the case. That lack of cooperation became more relevant recently when CBC News released details of confidential internal Justice Department memos related to the Diab case. The documents reveal that, rather than presenting the summaries of
the French evidence against Diab, Justice lawyers explicitly told French
officials to get a new handwriting analysis done to address the defects
in what they had presented. This was not disclosed to the court. Even more alarming is that the Justice Department lawyer asked French
officials to supply fingerprints of the bombing suspect so that the
RCMP could match them against Diab's fingerprints. The RCMP did the
analysis but found the crime scene fingerprints did not match with
Diab's. All of this clearly relevant and exculpatory evidence was
concealed from the court by the Justice Department lawyers. The court
also was never advised why there were several adjournment requests,
which were offered to allow France to complete additional handwriting
analysis. Deliberately withholding exculpatory evidence is not only a breach of
the Canadian Charter of Rights, but also a violation of traditional
disclosure obligations and professional standards for prosecutors. This
revelation from the Diab case also follows the scathing 2016 Federal
Court ruling
by Justice Simon Noel that revealed that the Justice Department and the
Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) had withheld relevant
information to the oversight court with respect to the gathering,
retention and use of metadata. Reliable legal procedures are essential to deal with international
crime and terrorism cases as the alternative may be an inability to
remove foreign criminals and terrorists. Actions taken by officials in
the Diab case undermine legitimate public expectations and confidence in
the extradition legal system and thus are contrary to public safety and
security. Hopefully, the Government of Canada will have the integrity and
resolve to learn from the Diab case and take appropriate corrective
actions, including at the Department of Justice.
The entire commentary can be found at:
Read the CBC story at the link below: (Canada helped France dig up evidence to extradite Ottawa man later freed on terror charges; Justice Department's 'smoking gun' evidence led to Hassan Diab's extradition, but case didn't hold up. David Cochrane; Lisa Laventure. May 1, 2018:) " Newly obtained documents reveal the efforts Canada made behind the scenes to ensure the extradition of Hassan Diab, the Ottawa university professor who spent more than three years in a French prison while being investigated for terrorism charges that were later dropped. An internal memo obtained by CBC News reveals that the "smoking gun" evidence that secured Diab's extradition to France in 2014 was obtained at the direction of a senior Canadian Department of Justice lawyer at a time when it appeared the French extradition case was falling apart. Diab spent 38 months in near solitary confinement in France's largest prison without ever being charged. French authorities tried for years to link him to a 1980 bombing targeting a Paris synagogue before the French courts ordered his release and return to Canada due to lack of evidence. The French government is still pushing to put him on trial. The confidential memo obtained by CBC News suggests that Diab — a Canadian citizen — never would have been extradited if not for the efforts of a specialized division of Canada's Department of Justice known as the International Assistance Group. Claude LeFrançois, senior counsel with the IAG, not only wrote the memo, he also obtained a series of court delays that gave France the time it needed to find the evidence. While that hunt for case-saving evidence continued, court transcripts show LeFrançois repeatedly told the court he had no direct knowledge of what France was doing — despite having directed France to find the evidence. The specifics of the renewed investigation weren't the only information kept from the court. When the French efforts turned up fingerprint analysis that could have helped clear Diab, it was never shared with the defence or shown to the Canadian judge who made the extradition order. "My first reaction is to question, is that Canada's role?" said Donald Bayne, who has represented Diab during this decade-long legal battle. "Should the Department of Justice be doing this? This is France's case. Canada has no case against Dr. Diab, never did. Canada is not the investigators for France." The secret process started in the fall of 2009, when it became clear that Diab's defence team had undermined key evidence in the French case connecting Diab to the bombing that killed four and injured dozens. France was leaning heavily on analysis by two handwriting experts who claimed there was a link between Diab's writing and that of the Paris bomber. But in October 2009, Diab's legal team produced contrary reports from four international handwriting experts. The defence experts questioned the methods and conclusions of the French experts, and they proved that some of handwriting samples used in the French analysis didn't even belong to Diab. They were his ex-wife's handwriting. The potential loss of that evidence posed an enormous threat to the French case. So on Nov. 21, 2009 LeFrançois sent an urgent memo to France.
A significant element of the overall evidence required for a court decision to allow extradition would be lost.— Justice Department lawyer Claude LeFrançois
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/hassan-diab-france-terrorism-investigation-1.4614855
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/c
