French authorities have detained a 72-year-old man considered a key suspect in a grenade and gun attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris in 1982, in which six people were killed.
Hicham Harb was extradited by the Palestinian National Authority on Thursday, in response to a request last September by France's National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT).
Harb, whose real name is Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, is suspected of directing the attack in the Rue des Rosiers and acting as one of the gunmen who shot at diners.
French President Emmanuel Macron thanked the Palestinian Authority and said it was a concrete demonstration of judicial co-operation resulting from France's recognition of a Palestinian state in September 2025.
Upon arrival at the Villacoublay air force base near Paris, Harb was placed in detention, PNAT said.
No one has ever been convicted of carrying out the six killings inside and outside the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the historically Jewish Marais quarter of Paris, where more than 20 others were wounded. The attackers initially threw a grenade into the restaurant, and at least three men then entered firing machine guns as people tried to escape.
Last year, France's highest judicial court ordered a trial for six suspects, three of whom are in absentia and living in the West Bank, Jordan, and Kuwait.
The Rue des Rosiers attack was blamed on a Palestinian splinter group founded by notorious militant Abu Nidal, alleged to have been responsible for numerous attacks, resulting in 900 deaths in the 1980s.
Two suspects in the Paris attack are already in France, including Norwegian citizen Abou Zayed, suspected of being one of the gunmen, while Hazza Taha is believed to have hidden weapons used in the attack.
Abou Zayed's lawyers deny any involvement in the shooting. Meanwhile, Harb's family has declared his extradition illegal and without guarantees of a fair trial.
Despite their appeals, French courts have ruled that the case will not be heard by a jury, but rather by judges in a special court.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who met victims' families last year, emphasized his commitment to bringing the suspects to trial. Forty-four years after the attack, justice could finally be served: 'Faced with anti-Semitism and terrorism, France never forgets and never gives up.'
