[Fdu] Attempted Interference in the Case of Carleton U's Dr. Hassan Diab

[Cynthia Wright]

>
>
> *Representatives of a Foreign State Meet with French Investigative 
> Judges to Try to Interfere in Dr. Diab’s case; PM Trudeau Urged to 
> Remedy Miscarriage of Justice*
>
> *PRESS RELEASE*
>
> *
> *
>
> *For Immediate Release*
>
> *
> *
>
> *1 November 2017, Ottawa –*Dr. Hassan Diab was informed that recently 
> officials of a foreign state met with the French investigative judges 
> offering their help in getting him charged instead of freed and 
> returned to Canada. Dr. Diab was extradited from Canada to France in 
> November 2014 even though the Canadian extradition judge found that 
> the evidence presented by French authorities is “suspect” and “very 
> problematic”; yet he stated that he felt compelled under Canada’s 
> extradition law to order Dr. Diab’s extradition.
>
>
> Dr. Diab has been in pre-trial detention in France for three years 
> despite three French judges repeatedly ordering his conditional 
> release. The investigative judges in charge of the case found that 
> there is “consistent evidence” that Dr. Diab was not in France at the 
> time of the 1980 Paris bombing. Official documents as well as several 
> witnesses confirmed that Dr. Diab was studying and taking his 
> university exams in Lebanon at that time. However, the French Court of 
> Appeal quashed all release orders following the prosecutor’s appeals 
> notably because of the climate in France.
>
>
> On July 28, 2017, the French investigative judges issued a notice 
> about the end of investigations in Dr. Diab’s case. However, their 
> final decision was delayed because the French prosecutor failed to 
> submit arguments within one month as stipulated in the French Criminal 
> Procedure Code.
>
>
> To this day, no such submission have been filed, but instead officials 
> of a foreign state have intervened to keep the case against Dr. Diab 
> alive at any cost. This latest development increases serious and 
> legitimate fears that political pressure might interfere with the 
> investigations and jeopardize Dr. Diab’s right to fair and independent 
> justice.
>
>
> The note submitted by the foreign state officials does not include any 
> evidence. It refers to old, recycled, unfounded anonymous and 
> contradictory allegations that were discredited by the French 
> investigative judges. The note even misstates the date of the Paris 
> bombing as 1982, and seems to confuse Dr. Diab with someone else. Its 
> palpable unreliability lends credence to the fact that this 
> intervention by a foreign state is nothing more than a last minute, 
> desperate attempt to bring political pressure on the French judicial 
> authorities and to deny Dr. Diab justice in France.
>
>
> Don Bayne, Dr. Diab’s lawyer in Canada, noted that “Dr. Diab has been 
> pleading for help from the Canadian government in his Kafkaesque 
> situation as he remains imprisoned despite evidence of his innocence. 
> Canada has been timid to act to aid this unjustly detained Canadian, 
> while a foreign state is taking direct action seeking to weigh on a 
> procedure conducted by French judicial authorities. Canada’s voice of 
> protest must be registered at the highest level of our government. The 
> duty of a government is protection of its citizens. Prime Minister 
> Trudeau must demand Dr. Diab’s freedom and return to Canada. Will the 
> Canadian government stand idly as the injustices in this case compound?”
>
> *For more information:*
>
> diabsupport at gmail.com <mailto:diabsupport at gmail.com>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________


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