Copernic Street bombing trial: the accused portrayed as a "pacifist" by his ex-wife

The remains of the synagogue, rue Copernic, where the bomb attack took place, October 03, 1980 AFP / Delmas

Text by: Laura Martel

2 min

In this last week of the trial of the attack of October 3, 1980 against the synagogue of the rue Copernic, attributed to a dissident branch of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), the court heard this Tuesday Nawal Copty, ex-wife of the accused Hassan Diab.

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While Hassan Diab remained in Ottawa and was therefore tried in his absence, Nawal Copty travelled from the United States to testify. An elegant sexagenarian with a fluent voice, she describes the 1980 student via her interpreter. A student "who loved swimming, football", "a funny guy", but above all a "pacifist", she says. "So I was very shocked when I heard about the accusations against him."

The president insists on whether the couple were sympathizers or members of the PFLP, the People's Liberation of Palestine, as claimed by one of their acquaintances. "This is totally false. I knew it was a faction, but only political or whatever, I don't know. If you ask me if they were committing attacks, it's possible, but I didn't follow this type of information," says Nawal Copty, who denies that the couple has been even politicized. "My parents are of Palestinian origin, so I was a little more sympathetic to this cause, but that doesn't mean I was for violence or a particular group," she said.

► Read also: Forty-three years later, the trial of the attack of the rue Copernic opens in Paris

Clearly skeptical, the attorney general points out that when the first accusations against Hassan Diab leaked in 2007, she suddenly exchanged more than 40 phone calls with her ex-husband and even visited him. And the magistrate to accuse her bluntly of having colluded with the Lebanese-Canadian sociology professor to help forge his alibi according to which he took his sociology exams in Lebanon in October 1980. Unperturbed, Nawal Copty denies. "We called each other twice a week. Even if I was not in Lebanon, I knew that he was there, "says the sexagenarian who, like the accused, argues that the French justice must have "been wrong person".

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You have understood that the prosecution suggests that you are lying. What would you like to say to the court to assure them of your sincerity? " asks Me Bourdon for the defense. "I am a person of faith, I go to church, I pray. Lying is a sin. I won't," the witness said.

► Read also: Trial of the attack of the rue Copernic: the doubts of judge Jean-Marc Herbaut

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