Canadian Crown attorneys on Tuesday defended key handwriting evidence that led to a decision to extradite a Canadian university professor accused of a deadly 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue.
Hassan Diab is appealing the 2011 court decision and the Canadian government's order to extradite the former University of Ottawa sociologist to France, despite the court's concerns that the case was "weak."
Diab denies any involvement in the first fatal attack against the French Jewish community since the Nazi occupation in World War II, which left four dead and many wounded.
A dozen or so Diab supporters returned for the second day of the hearing, where the Crown defended Justice Robert Maranger's decision to allow the handwriting analysis report by Anne Bisotti in the original extradition hearing.
On Monday, defense lawyers worked to discredit Bisotti's findings -- that Diab likely signed a Paris hotel slip under a false identity (Alexander Panadriyu), which was also used to purchase a motorcycle used in the bombing -- by saying she failed to use the proper methodology.
But Crown lawyer Janet Henchey said that it is not the job of the extradition judge to establish reliability of the evidence, and that French courts should be relied upon to do the due diligence on the report at a formal trial.
"It may not feel right at first, but that's because you're looking at it from the perspective of a Canadian trial. This is not a Canadian trial," she said.
"There may be safeguards that do not look like ours, but... it's arrogant for us as a country to think that only our trial process can provide safeguards that are required for due process."
Henchey also said that the defense never questioned the samples of writing themselves, but rather focused only on whether the methodology was applied correctly, and added that in part, "expense and convenience" are considerations in an extradition case.
"It should be expeditious," she said, drawing a response from Appeals Court Justice Robert Blair: "I can't imagine flying a witness in from France would be an inconvenience."
The hearing concludes later today.