The suspect in the 1982 attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris is turned over by Palestinians.

 

The attackers threw a grenade into the restaurant before opening fire with machine guns(image: getty images)

A 72-year-old man who was thought to be a key suspect in the 1982 grenade and gun attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris that killed six people has been detained by French authorities. In response to a request made by France's National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT) in September, the Palestinian National Authority extradited Hicham Harb on Thursday. Harb, whose real name is Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, is thought to have been one of the gunmen who shot at diners and directed the attack in the Rue des Rosiers. The Palestinian Authority received a "concrete demonstration" of judicial cooperation as a result of France's recognition of a Palestinian state in September 2025, according to President Emmanuel Macron of France. On arrival at the Villacoublay air force base near Paris, Harb was placed in detention, PNAT said.

 Six people were killed inside and outside the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the historically Jewish Marais neighborhood of Paris, wounding more than 20 others. No one has been found guilty of the crimes. At least three men went into the restaurant and fired machine guns as people attempted to flee after the attackers threw a grenade at it. Last year, France's highest judicial court, the Court of Cassation, ordered a trial for six suspects, of whom three are in absentia and living in the West Bank, Jordan and Kuwait.

 A Palestinian splinter group led by infamous militant Abu Nidal, who was shot and killed in Iraq in 2002, was blamed for the Rue des Rosiers attack. Nidal's organisation broke away from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and was blamed for a string of deadly attacks that claimed 900 lives, mostly in the 1980s, including assassinations, plane hijackings and shootings at airports and on a Greek cruise ship.

Two suspects in the Paris attack are already in France, including Norwegian citizen Abou Zayed, who is suspected of being one of the gunmen, while Hazza Taha is suspected of hiding weapons used in the attack.

 The defense team for Abou Zayed has denied that he was involved in the shooting. In the meantime, Bilal al-Adra, Hicham Harb's son, stated that the family considered his extradition to be illegal and lacked any assurance of a fair trial. However, an appeal to have the case heard by a jury rather than judges in a special court has been rejected by the Paris courts. When he met with the families of the Rue des Rosiers victims last year, French Foreign Minister Jean-Nol Barrot stated that he had promised them that everything would be done to bring the suspects to justice. "Faced with anti-Semitism and terrorism, France never forgets and never gives up," he stated, "Faced with anti-Semitism and terrorism, France never forgets."

Source: BBC