The rue des Rosiers in Paris, in 2015. -
THOMAS SAMSON / AFP
He is one of the main suspects of the attack which killed six people in the Jewish quarter of Paris in 1982. Norwegian justice ruled on Friday that the legal conditions for extradition to France of Walid Abdulrahman Abou Zayed were gathered.
"The conditions for extradition to France are (...) met", ruled Judge Pernille Wold Ellingsen.
Subject to appeal, the decision of the Oslo court relates only to the legality of such an extradition, that of extraditing or not Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed ultimately falling to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, or even to the government meeting in its entirety before the king.
Three to five men, August 9, 1982
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 opposed to it because I have nothing to do with it," he said a few hours earlier in court.
On August 9, 1982, a commando group of three to five men threw a grenade into the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the “Pletzl”, a historic Jewish quarter in Paris, then opened fire in the establishment and against passers-by.
The attack left six dead and 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 at the time of the attack.
"I don't like France"
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 decision 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", proclaimed the latter 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 even the failing health of his client who would present “two serious psychiatric diagnoses”.
Four arrest warrants
The families of the victims, who have been hoping for a trial for nearly four decades, have placed high hopes in this extradition.
"We are very impatient to have this gentleman's explanations and very curious what he will have to tell us, hoping that this extradition can unblock the situations in Jordan and Ramallah", for his part said 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.
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