In the context of the visit of the representative of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, the Crif and the French Association of Victims of Terrorism solemnly ask the President, on behalf of the victims of the attack on rue des Rosiers and their families, to do everything in his power to ensure that justice is done.
“Mr. President of the Republic,
This week you will receive at the Elysée Palace the representative of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas.
In this context, the Crif and the French Association of Victims of Terrorism would like to remind you that the dynamic of collaboration that you wish to encourage with the Palestinian Authority must also have as its objective the prosecution and trial of any individual suspected or identified as having participated in a terrorist undertaking, regardless of the organization targeted.
For the victims, the imperative of justice does not sit well with a variable geometry application. This is particularly true for the antisemitic terrorist attack against France on August 9, 1982, which struck at the heart of Paris when a commando targeted the Jo Goldenberg restaurant on rue des Rosiers. Six people were killed and twenty-two others injured. It took more than thirty years of investigation and the pugnacity of the investigators and the anti-terrorist judge Marc Trévidic for the suspects to be identified and for arrest warrants to be issued against them.
Today, justice has still not been done.
The Palestinian Authority, like Jordan, persists in rejecting the extradition requests made by the French justice system in defiance of the principle aut dedere aut judicare.
Faced with this situation, how can we fail to understand the feeling of incomprehension and powerlessness that drives the victims?
Their request is the least compensation that our Republic can offer: access to justice and the emergence of the truth. We ask, in accordance with the law, that the persons implicated in the attack on Rue des Rosiers be extradited so that they may be heard by the French judge in charge of the Régis Pierre case.
It will then be up to the courts to decide whether or not these people are involved.
On behalf of the victims of the attack on Rue des Rosiers and their families, we solemnly ask you, Mr. President, to do everything in your power to ensure that justice is done.
Please accept, Mr. President of the Republic, the expression of our highest consideration.”
Francis Kalifat, President of CRIF
Pierre François Ikias, President of AFVT
The CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France) is EJC affiliate in France.
