PARIS (AP) — France’s president on Friday welcomed the arrest this week in the occupied West Bank of a key Palestinian suspect in a 1982 terror attack in Paris, calling it the result of “excellent cooperation” with the Palestinian Authority.
The suspect, Hicham Harb, 70, is accused of overseeing the militants who stormed the Jo Goldenberg restaurant on Rue des Rosiers on Aug. 9, 1982. Six people were killed and 22 were wounded in what became one of modern France’s most notorious antisemitic attacks.
The machine-gun and grenade attack in Paris’ Jewish quarter, attributed to the Abu Nidal Organization, shocked the nation and underscored the global reach of Palestinian militant groups at the time.
France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office told The Associated Press it was informed through Interpol that Palestinian authorities arrested Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, known as Hicham Harb, under a 2015 international warrant linked to the Rue des Rosiers attack.
He was formally indicted by French judges on July 31 on charges of murder and attempted murder in connection with the attack. Harb and five other men in the case were referred to trial. He is the first of the group to be arrested.
President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X that the arrest was the result of “excellent cooperation with the Palestinian Authority” and described it as “an additional step for justice and truth.”
“France does not forget,” he added. “It always sanctions and punishes. Justice will prevail.”
Macron said he hopes for a speedy extradition.
Investigators say the arrests of other suspects — all believed to be abroad if still alive, in countries including Jordan, Norway and the Palestinian territories — have long been complicated by political sensitivities and lack of cooperation from foreign governments.
France’s Jewish community, the largest in Europe, has repeatedly pressed authorities to pursue justice in the Rue des Rosiers case, which has haunted France for more than four decades.
Macron is expected to announce France’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week — a step that would make France one of the most influential Western powers to endorse Palestinian statehood in recent years.
