Palestinian Hicham Harb was placed in pre-trial detention the day after his extradition to France, awaiting trial for the anti-Semitic attack on Rue des Rosiers in Paris in 1982, which he is suspected of having supervised, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) announced on Friday in a press release.
“After notification by the national anti-terrorism prosecution of the arrest warrant issued against him, (he) was presented to the judge of freedoms and detention,” announced the prosecution. “He was placed in pre-trial detention pending his appearance before the specially composed assize court, competent in matters of terrorism.”
“There is no proof”
Arrested by the Palestinian authorities on September 17, 2025, a few days before the official recognition of Palestine by Paris, Hicham Harb, 72, had been the subject of an arrest warrant since 2015.
Contacted Friday afternoon by AFP, her French lawyer indicated that she did not wish to speak at the moment. “France is a state of law, and there is no evidence” against him and “he has no connection with the accusations made against him,” declared his eldest son, Bilal Harb, interviewed by AFP on Friday in Ramallah. His lawyer there, Ammar Dweik, ruled on Thursday that his extradition constituted “a serious violation of Palestinian fundamental law and a dangerous precedent”.
The special assize court must soon judge the suspects in this attack which left six dead and 22 injured in the Marais, a Jewish district in the center of Paris, a little over four decades ago. The attack was attributed to the Fatah-Revolutionary Council (Fatah-CR) of Abu Nidal, a Palestinian dissident group from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Two other Jordanian suspects in the Rue des Rosiers attack remain in Jordan.
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