- Dear Friends and Supporters,
You may recall that, in early May, CBC News reported that a senior lawyer at the Canadian Department of Justice urged the French authorities in 2009 to obtain new handwriting “evidence” against Hassan when the extradition case was about to collapse. In another effort to shore up the case, the DOJ lawyer requested fingerprint analysis as he believed that the evidence would be very powerful in getting Hassan extradited. When the fingerprint analysis excluded Hassan, the DOJ lawyer never disclosed this fact to the court in Canada or to the defense.
Last week, CBC News reported that another key fingerprint analysis exonerating Hassan was not disclosed to the court in Canada. The court in Canada was told that no such evidence existed, when in fact the fingerprint analysis that excluded Hassan was done many months before France requested Hassan’s extradition.
In a separate story, CBC news revealed that a senior official at the Department of Justice who is running the “internal review” regarding Hassan’s case had actually played a role in Hassan’s extradition, which is a clear conflict of interest.
These revelations point to a long, troubling pattern of injustice in Hassan’s case and the role that government officials, especially within the Canadian Department of Justice, played in Hassan’s ordeal.
We urge you to join us and a growing list of organizations – such as Amnesty, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Association of University Teachers, and Criminal Lawyers Association – in calling upon the Government of Canada to appoint an independent commissioner to conduct a thorough public inquiry into Hassan Diab’s extradition case, so no other Canadian would go through what Hassan and his family had to endure.
Please sign the petition here.
If you’ve already signed, THANK YOU. Please share the petition with family and friends, and distribute it on social media.
As a reminder, the Paris Court of Appeal will render a decision on July 6 regarding whether to uphold the investigating judges’ dismissal of the case against Hassan. The judges have declared Hassan innocent of the 1980 crime and ordered Hassan’s release. However, for political reasons and due to the climate in France, the French prosecutor has appealed. We remain hopeful that reason and justice will prevail and an innocent man’s ordeal will end soon.
