A judge has ordered a publication ban at a hearing for an Ottawa sociology instructor wanted by French authorities in connection with a deadly bomb attack in Paris nearly 30 years ago.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Michel Charbonneau ordered the ban at the request of federal lawyers in the case of Hassan Diab, 55, who was picked up by the RCMP on Thursday at his home in Gatineau, Que.
He faces charges of murder, attempted murder, willful destruction of property by an organized group -- charges Diab denies.
Diab's lawyer Rene Duval said his client was nowhere near Paris before or after the blast.
"He wasn't in France, for sure," Duval said Friday outside the court. "He was probably, at the time this happened, still studying at the University of Lebanon," he said.
The part-time sociology instructor at the University of Ottawa was arrested on a provisional warrant for extradition at the request of French authorities, the Department of Justice said Thursday.
Under the terms of the arrest warrant, an official extradition request must be filed within 45 days.
At that point a Canadian judge will be asked to look at evidence the French authorities have against Diab, and determine whether the evidence is sufficient to approve his extradition, said former CSIS agent Michel Juneau-Katsuya.
"Since there is a treaty between France and Canada for the extradition of criminals, if everything is fine he can be sent to France and then he will face (trial) over there," Juneau-Katsuya told CTV Newsnet.
Two French anti-terrorism judges travelled to Canada earlier this week, according to The Associated Press.
On Thursday, French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie credited co-operation between authorities from the two countries for the arrest.
Diab is wanted in a 1980 bombing outside a Jewish synagogue in a posh Paris neighbourhood. Three French citizens and one Israeli woman were killed in the blast, which went off just minutes before a large crowd of people were due to emerge.
Twenty other people were hurt in the bombing.
It first emerged one year ago that French authorities were investigating Diab. The story was intentionally leaked to the media, Juneau-Katsuya said, over frustrations that Canada wasn't doing enough to help in the investigation.
"A top French counter-terrorist judge said Canada was dragging its feet, so what they decided to do is leak the information to the press, the press mounted some pressure and a year later here we are with the Canadians arresting this gentleman," he said.
In addition to teaching at the University of Ottawa, Diab is listed as a contract instructor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University for the fall of 2008.
Diab maintains it is simply a case of mistaken identity, and if he was a terrorist he would have changed his name or tried to hide his identity.
At Carleton University, some of Diab's students were shocked their instructor had been implicated in a terror case.
"It just seems out of character for him," said one student who didn't want to be named. "But then again, it was 30 years ago so who can really know, right?"
