


PARIS, France — French prosecutors said on Wednesday they were seeking the trial of six people by a special terrorism court over an attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris 43 years ago, in which six people were killed and at least 20 others were injured.
The bombing and shooting assault on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the heart of the Jewish district of the Marais quarter in August 1982 marked the deadliest antisemitic attack in France at the time since World War Two.
It came amid a wave of violence involving Palestinian terrorists. There has been no previous trial related to the case.
A judge now has to decide whether a trial will take place.
The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) said in a statement that it was requesting a trial of Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed, suspected of being one of the gunmen behind the attack and detained in France since the end of 2020, after he was extradited from Norway.
Also among those it wants to put on trial are Nizar Tawfik Mussa and Mahmoud Khader on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist organization.
PNAT said it wanted three other people also to stand trial for complicity in murder and complicity in attempted murder in connection with a terrorist organization.
Arrest warrants for the suspects have been issued, though it is not known whether five of them are currently in France.
In the 1982 attack, two groups of men, arriving separately, used first grenades and then machine guns against customers and staff at the Ashkenazi restaurant on Rue des Rosiers.
French media at the time reported that the men were believed to be members of the Fatah-Revolutionary Council (Fatah-RC), a radical Palestinian dissident group then based in Iraq and led by Abu Nidal.
The attackers murdered six people — Mohamed Bennemou, André Hezkia Niego, Georges Demeter, Denise Guerche Rossignol and two Americans, Ann Van Zanten and Grace Cutler.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.