Palestinian Authority extradites suspect of 1982 Paris restaurant attack

JERUSALEM: The Palestinian Authority extradited a suspect to France on Thursday who is wanted over an attack against a Jewish restaurant in Paris in 1982, his lawyer told AFP.
“Hicham Harb’s family contacted me today to inform me that they had been notified by the Palestinian Authority of his extradition to the French authorities,” Ammar Dweik told AFP by phone.
Harb is one of four suspects sought in connection with the attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the Marais, a Jewish neighborhood in Paris, on August 9, 1982.
A group of three to five men hurled a grenade inside the restaurant before opening fire on customers, killing six people and wounding 22 others.
The attack was attributed to the Fatah-Revolutionary Council (Fatah-RC) led by Abu Nidal, a Palestinian splinter group that broke away from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Harb is believed to have been one of the coordinators of the assault. Palestinian authorities announced his arrest in September 2025.
In an interview with French daily Le Figaro late in 2025, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Harb would be extradited following France’s recognition of the State of Palestine in September that year.
He said the decision had created “an appropriate framework for this French request.”
In February, France’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court, confirmed that a trial would be held over the 1982 attack against two other Palestinians held in France, one of whom has Norwegian citizenship.
Harb is also the subject of a 1988 German arrest warrant in connection with an attack at Frankfurt airport in 1985, and has been suspected by Italian investigators over an attack on a synagogue in Rome in 1982 in which a two-year-old child was killed.