e-3400 (Foreign affairs)

Petition to the Prime Minister

• Canadian citizen Hassan Diab was extradited to France in 2014, in a case widely acknowledged as a miscarriage of justice;
• Hassan’s extradition was based on a discredited handwriting analysis (“Bisotti report”), described by the extradition judge as “very problematic” and “suspect”;
• There is significant evidence which exculpates Hassan, including exculpatory fingerprint and palmprint evidence;
• Hassan was held in France, without charge, mostly in solitary confinement, from 2014 to 2018;
• French investigating judges found “consistent evidence” supporting Hassan’s innocence, concluded that he could not have been in France at the time of the 1980 bombing, and ordered his release;
• The French prosecutor appealed the Order of Dismissal against Hassan, and a new handwriting analysis was ordered;
• The new analysis agreed with defense handwriting experts that the Bisotti report used an improper methodology and is unreliable;
• Despite all evidence, in January 2021, a French Court of Appeal overturned Hassan’s release and ordered a trial;
• Aggressive lobbying in France has fostered political pressure for further prosecution and scapegoating of Hassan; and
• On 20 June 2018, PM Trudeau declared that “we have to recognise that what happened to [Hassan] never should have happened… and make sure that it never happens again.”