Terror-accused professor returns to Canada

Canadian university professor Hassan Diab is back home in Ottawa after a nine-year ordeal that included three years in a French prison on unsubstantiated terrorism charges, writes Evan Dyer for CBC News.

Diab was extradited from Canada three years ago after a prolonged legal battle against extradition. French prosecutors had linked him to a 1980 synagogue bombing that killed three people. Diab was released from prison after authorities in France dropped terrorism charges against him due to lack of evidence. Although the French courts produced little evidence to back up the claim he was involved in a bombing, Diab's requests to return to Canada were repeatedly denied.

Judges in France ordered Diab's release on at least eight occasions before he was finally set free. He remained imprisoned despite the fact that he did not match a fingerprint left by the perpetrator of the Paris bombing in 1980, and could demonstrate that he was in fact sitting exams in Beirut at the time it occurred. Both university records, and the stamps in Diab's passport, backed his claims.
Full report on the CBC News site