Police sketch released in 1980 by French police shows Hassan Diab (AFP Photo)
A Canadian academic accused of the deadly 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue is expected to arrive in France on Saturday after losing his battle against extradition earlier this week, sources told AFP.
University professor Hassan Diab is set to land in Paris on Saturday after being transferred from detention in Ottawa to Montreal on Friday for an overnight flight, sources said.
Diab's extradition is the culmination of a six-year legal battle fought to avoid what he said would be an unfair prosecution in France for a crime he insists he did not commit.
On Thursday, Canada's Supreme Court refused to hear his final plea to quash his expulsion, effectively ensuring he would face trial in France.
The 1980 bombing on the narrow Rue Copernic was the first fatal attack against the French Jewish community since the Nazi occupation in World War II.
Explosives packed in the saddlebags of a parked motorcycle were detonated as worshippers were starting to exit the synagogue.
The blast killed three Frenchmen and a young Israeli woman. Forty were injured.