A terrorism court in France has ordered six suspected Palestinian terrorists to go on trial for an attack 43 years ago at a Jewish restaurant and deli in Paris that killed six people, a lawyer said Thursday.
Attackers threw grenades and then sprayed machine-gun fire into the Jo Goldenberg restaurant on August 9, 1982, in the deadliest antisemitic attack in France since World War II, which also injured 22 people. Two of those killed were Americans.
Though four of the suspects remain abroad and would likely be tried in absentia, investigating judges have issued an order for a trial, which could begin early next year, said David Père, who represents victims. The Paris-based court does not publish its orders publicly and generally does not respond to journalists.
The suspects are believed to have been members of the Palestinian terrorist group Abu Nidal at the time of the attack.
The alleged ringleader, Mohamed Souhair al-Abassi, also known as Amjad Atta, is in Jordan, where authorities have refused to extradite him. Three other suspects are believed to be in either the Palestinian territories or Jordan: Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, also known as Hicham Harb; Nabil Hassan Mahmoud Othmane, also known as Ibrahim Hamza; and Nizar Tawfiq Moussa Hamada, also known as Hani.
One of the defendants, Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed, had emigrated with his family to Norway and was extradited to France in 2020. The sixth defendant, Hazza Taha, was detained more recently in Paris.
Père, who represents dozens of relatives of the victims and one direct survivor, said the trial is “historic” for them. “For them, this is not about the past but the present. It’s a trial they intend to follow day by day,” Père told The Associated Press.
The one survivor represented by Père was not injured in the attack but remains traumatized by it. “He wants to see the suspects and try to understand,” Père said.
The attackers murdered six people — Mohamed Bennemou, André Hezkia Niego, Georges Demeter, Denise Guerche Rossignol and two Americans, Ann Van Zanten and Grace Cutler.
Jo Goldenberg, the owner of the Jewish restaurant and deli, recalled the horror of the lunchtime attack during an interview in 2002.
“They fired on everyone who was eating lunch — everyone,” Goldenberg said at the time. The place, which has since closed, was a centerpiece tourist attraction in the Marais neighborhood.
French authorities announced in 2015 — nearly 33 years after the attack — that international arrest warrants had been issued for the suspects.
The Abu Nidal faction, named after its leader, is considered responsible for nearly two dozen attacks that left at least 275 people dead, including assaults on El Al Israel Airlines ticket counters at the Rome and Vienna airports in 1985, in which 18 people were killed.
The notorious Abu Nidal himself was found dead in his Baghdad apartment in August 2002. Iraqi authorities said Abu Nidal, whose real name is Sabri al-Banna, died by suicide.