After a 43-year wait, the survivors of a terrorist attack at a Jewish restaurant and deli in Paris will be able to follow a trial against the suspected assailants.
A French court has ordered a trial against six Palestinians for the suspected killing of six people on Aug. 9, 1982, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
It was the deadliest antisemitic attack in France since World War II. Two of those killed were Americans from Chicago. Twenty-two other people were wounded in an attack that involved grenades and machine guns.
The owner of the Jewish restaurant and deli, Jo Goldenberg, recalled the horrifying moments during an interview in 2002.
“They fired on everyone who was eating lunch—everyone,” said Goldenberg, according to AP. The Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant was once a popular tourist attraction in the Marais neighborhood, but has since been closed, the report added.
Lawyer David Père, who represents the victims and their families, said that the trial could begin in early 2026.
“For them, this is not about the past but the present. It’s a trial they intend to follow day by day,” he told AP.
One survivor who was traumatized by the attack “wants to see the suspects and try to understand,” Père said.
Four of the Palestinian suspects live abroad and would likely be tried in absentia, according to the lawyer.
The alleged ringleader, Mohamed Souhair al-Abassi, also known as Amjad Atta, is in Jordan. Authorities have refused to extradite him, AP reported. The three others are believed to be either in Judea and Samaria or in Jordan: Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, also called Hicham Harb; Nabil Hassan Mahmoud Othmane, also known as Ibrahim Hamza; and Nizar Tawfiq Moussa Hamada, also known as Hani, according to AP.
Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed, who will be present at the trial, immigrated with his family to Norway and was extradited to France in 2020, the report continued. The sixth defendant, Hazza Taha, was detained more recently in Paris.
The suspects are believed to have been members of the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal Organization at the time of the attack.
Sabri Khalil al-Banna, known by his nom de guerre Abu Nidal (“Father of struggle”) was the founder of Fatah: The Revolutionary Council in 1974. It was a splinter group from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization. At the time, these Palestinian terrorist groups leaned more toward nationalism than today’s Palestinian groups that are heavily influenced by radical Islam, such as Hamas.
The Abu Nidal faction, led by its namesake, is believed to be responsible for at least 20 attacks that killed 275 people, including the 1985 El Al ticket counters assaults in Rome and Vienna that left 18 dead.
In July, French prosecutors announced that they are seeking to bring six individuals to trial before a special terrorism court in connection with the 1982 attack.
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
In a separate case, France decided recently to release from prison convicted terrorist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, 74, who served 40 years of a life sentence for his role in the murder in France of Israeli and American diplomats in 1982. His release was followed by an immediate expulsion to his native Lebanon.
The Trump administration on July 27 criticized the move, calling it a “grave injustice.”
Abdullah’s “release threatens the safety of U.S. diplomats abroad and is a grave injustice to the victims and the families of those killed,” tweeted Tammy Bruce, the U.S. State Department’s spokesperson.
“The United States will continue to support the pursuit of justice in this matter,” she added.
The Paris Appeals Court agreed to release Abdallah on July 25, arguing that he posed “no serious risk in terms of committing new terrorism acts.”
