Montreal - Canadian police arrested a University of Ottawa sociology professor Thursday in connection with the 1980 bombing that killed four people and more than 20 wounded outside a Paris synagogue. Hassan Diab, 54, was taken into custody by agents of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada's national police force, at his home in Gatineau, Quebec, Diab's lawyer, Rene Duval, told the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.
RCMP confirmed that the arrest was made by members of a Canadian anti-terrorism team cooperating with a French investigation, carrying out a provisional arrest warrant under Canada's Extradition Act.
"This is a French investigation," RCMP Corporal Jean Hainey said. "The RCMP was simply providing assistance under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty."
Hainey refused to identify the man arrested as Diab.
The bombing on October 3, 1980, outside the Copernic Road Synagogue in Paris, killed three French men and a young Israeli woman. The explosive device was concealed inside a parked motorcycle.
Duval said, Diab, a Lebanese-Canadian who works part-time as a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University in Ottawa, is expected to appear in court Friday afternoon.
Under Canadian law, French authorities have 45 days to add further evidence to support an extradition request.
