A Norwegian citizen, presumed author of the attack on the rue des Rosiers, soon to be tried in France?

The Oslo court estimated, Friday, September 25, to have met the legal conditions for the extradition to France of a suspect in the terrorist attack which killed six people in the Jewish quarter of Paris in 1982.

"The conditions for extradition to France are (...) met", ruled Judge Pernille Wold Ellingsen.

Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed "can be extradited" under Norwegian law, she concluded.

Arrested on September 9 in Norway, where he has lived since 1991, this 61-year-old man of Palestinian origin claims his innocence and refuses to be sent to France, where he faces legal proceedings.

"I am against it because I have nothing to do with it," he said a few hours earlier in court, where he arrived under police escort, waving his hand in victory.

On August 9, 1982, a commando group of three to five men threw a grenade into the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the "Pletzl", historic Jewish quarter of Paris, then opened fire in the establishment and against passers-by.

The attack also left 22 injured.

The operation was quickly attributed to the Fatah-Revolutionary Council (Fatah-CR) of Abu Nidal, a Palestinian dissident group of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

French justice suspects Abou Zayed, naturalized Norwegian in 1997, of having been "one of the shooters of the attack".

Assures him that he was in Monte-Carlo.   

6 dead, 22 injured in the attack on rue des Rosiers on August 9, 1982 in Paris

02:08

The legality of the extradition in question

Norway had not followed up on a previous request from Paris in 2015 because it was not then extraditing its nationals.

But the entry into force last year of an agreement with the EU and Iceland now allows it.

According to Norwegian law, a legally binding extradition order must "if possible" be made no later than 45 days after an arrest.

Prosecution representative Anne Karoline Bakken Staff said on Friday that an extradition could be accompanied by a requirement that Abu Zayed serve a possible sentence in Norway.

"I don't like France," the latter proclaimed through the voice of an interpreter.

"I don't want to go to prison in France".

His lawyer, Ole-Martin Meland, questioned the legality of an extradition, citing the lack of reciprocity, France would not accept to extradite its nationals to Norway, the prescription of the facts in Norwegian law, or again the failing health of his client who would present "two serious psychiatric diagnoses".

The French request is "extremely meager," he said, noting that the only evidence provided was the testimony of Atef Abubaker, a former member of the Abu Nidal group, incriminating Abu Zayed, who said he did not know him. .

"We cannot throw a Norwegian citizen out of Norway on the basis of smoky allegations," the lawyer also argued.

A trial 40 years after the attack?

Before the Oslo court ruling was known, the families of the victims, who have been hoping for a trial for nearly four decades, had placed high hopes in a possible extradition.

"It is very important at the level of the symbol, especially in view of the French judicial news with the trial of the attacks of January 2015, that a person implicated be put in front of his responsibilities", declared to the AFP David Père, lawyer for the French Association of Victims of Terrorism (AFVT).

"We are very impatient to have this gentleman's explanations and very curious about what he will have to tell us, hoping that this extradition can unblock the situations in Jordan and Ramallah", for his part indicated Romain Boulet, lawyer for relatives of victims.

French justice has indeed issued four international arrest warrants targeting Abu Zayed, two individuals located in Jordan and another in the West Bank, all suspected of having been involved in the preparation or perpetration of the attack.

Jordan has repeatedly refused to extradite the two suspects present in its territory, including the suspected mastermind of the attack.

The case is all the more sensitive as a possible secret agreement made at the time between French intelligence and the Abou Nidal group is regularly mentioned: the former would have undertaken to release prisoners in return for the commitment of the group not to carry out operations on French soil.

France: Revelations on the attack on rue des Rosiers in 1982

With AFP

The summary of the week

France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 application

google-play-badge_FR