A judge ruled Friday that a former Carleton professor accused in a deadly 1980 Paris bombing can call some but not all of the witnesses he wants to attack French evidence at his extradition hearing next month.
Lawyers for Hassan Diab, 56, wanted to call nine witnesses on what they consider flawed handwriting analysis and the unfair use of unsourced intelligence tying him to the blast.
Judge Robert Maranger ruled the defence can call two of four handwriting experts but enter all four reports into evidence. The Crown can cross-examine all four experts.
The defence will be able to call a University of Toronto law professor on the issue of intelligence of evidence but can't rely on testimony on the issue of an RCMP corporal at Diab's bail hearing.
Maranger will release his reasons at a later date.
"I think it's a really fair decision," Yves Jubinville, one of Diab's lawyers, said. "The test was could this be manifestly unreliable? The judge, by letting us call some of the evidence, wants to have some evidence on the issues of handwriting and intelligence."
Lawyers for the Attorney General of Canada, acting on behalf of France, argued none of the witnesses be heard on the French evidence, which is presumed under extradition law to be reliable.
Maranger's role is to simply decide whether a jury could convict Diab based on that evidence, they argued.
Diab is accused of killing four people and injuring 40 others outside a synagogue with an explosives-laden motorcycle in a bombing blamed on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
His lawyers argue handwriting analysis tying him to the blast and unsourced intelligence are "manifestly unreliable."