Dr. Hassan Diab was unanimously convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the bombing.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
A Lebanese terrorist who was convicted in France for a synagogue bombing that killed four people is teaching a sociology course at a Canadian university in Ottawa.
Dr. Hassan Diab, whose course at Carleton University is called “Social Justice in Action,” was unanimously convicted in France and sentenced to life in prison for a bombing at the Rue Copernic Reform synagogue, which killed four and injured 46.
After his arrest in 2008, Diab fled to Canada, and although he was extradited to France in 2014, he spent only two years in prison before being placed on house arrest and escaping once again.
A son of one of the victims of the bombing, TV presenter Aliza Shragir, said the decision to allow Diab to teach was “outrageous.”
Idit Shamir, the Israeli consul general in Toronto, posted on X that the decision was “unconscionable.”
She wrote, “Hassan Diab, the terrorist who murdered my friend’s mother, Aliza Shagrir, before his eyes in the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing, still lectures at Canada’s @Carleton_U.”
“A French court gave him life for murdering 4 souls & maiming 46. Yet Carleton University rewards him with a teaching position?”
“This isn’t just a failure of justice,” Shamir added. “It’s spitting on the graves of Jewish victims.”
B’nai Brith of Canada expressed dismay at Carleton University’s decision to ignore its plea not to hire the convicted terrorist as part of the institution’s faculty.
“Despite being handed a life sentence by a French court, Hassan Diab continues to live freely in Canada, while Carleton University, unconscionably, continues to allow him the privilege of teaching at a Canadian Institution,” B’nai Brith said in a statement.
The university heeded B’nai Brith’s warning in 2009 and said that Diab had been replaced “in the interest of providing students with a stable, productive academic environment that is conducive to learning.”
However, the university justifies reinstating Diab, claiming he was “unjustly accused” and insisting he should be allowed to “tell his side of the story.”