Justice Minister Rob Nicholson ordered April 4 that former Carleton contract instructor Hassan Diab be extradited to France, according to Department of Justice media relations manager Christian Girouard.
He has been accused of involvement in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue which left four dead and as many as 40 wounded.
Diab is one of five accused of building the explosive and leaving it to detonate outside the synagogue.
Originally of Lebanese descent, Diab received Canadian citizenship in 1993 and moved to Ottawa in 2006. He was arrested in November 2008.
The move confirms the decision Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger reluctantly made on June 6, 2011. In his initial ruling, Maranger had called case against Diab “weak” and said that “the prospects of conviction in the context of a fair trial, seemed unlikely.”
Diab’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, had already appealed Maranger’s decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Bayne has also indicated he will appeal Minister Nicholson’s order to release Diab to French authorities, according to Donald Pratt, a spokesperson for a group of Diab’s supporters in Ottawa.
Diab and his legal team have only 30 days to seek judicial review of Nicholson’s decision, according to Girouard.
