Paris – France Issues Warrants For 3 Suspects In 1982 Jewish Restaurant Attack

Paris – More than 32 years after a deadly terror attack in Paris’ old Jewish quarter, French authorities have at last identified three suspects and are seeking their arrest.

Grenade-throwing Palestinians burst into the Jo Goldenberg deli on Aug. 9, 1982, and sprayed machine-gun fire. Six people, including two Americans, were killed, and 21 injured. The restaurant, which has since closed, was a centerpiece tourist attraction in the famed Marais neighborhood.

Paris prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said Wednesday that international arrest warrants have been issued for the three suspects — now aged in their late 50s and early 60s — who were believed to be members of the Abu Nidal group.

She said they are believed to be in the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Norway but declined to release their names, citing protocol.

The announcement comes as French authorities are grappling with rising anti-Semitism, notably among young Muslim radicals. A French Islamic extremist killed four people at a Paris kosher supermarket in January, and another French radical killed four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012.

The anti-terrorism judge who opened the investigation at the time of the attack said he was “happy, relieved” by the developments. Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who is now retired, told RTL radio that while the extradition of one suspect from Norway “won’t pose many problems,” it will be “far more complex” trying to bring the other two to France from Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

The news that the 1982 attack suspects have been identified at last “is a very strong message to terrorists and killers: Wherever you are, we will find you, we will arrest you and we will judge you,” Alain Jakubowicz, head of anti-racism group LICRA, said on BFM television.

The international arrest warrants follow an investigation now conducted by French anti-terrorism judge Marc Trevidic.

The investigation into an even older case, the 1980 bombing outside a Paris synagogue that killed three French and one Israeli, is also alive. The suspect in that case was extradited to France late last year.