OTTAWA, July 29 (UPI) -- A Canadian university said it has decided against hiring a professor suspected of involvement in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue.
Carleton University in Ottawa said Professor Hassan Diab, 55, who holds dual Lebanese and Canadian citizenship, will be replaced by a current faculty member, Haaretz said Wednesday.
Jewish organizations harshly criticized the university, which initially contracted Diab to teach sociology at the university twice a week, the paper said.
A statement released by the university, said the decision not to hire Diab will provide students "with a stable, productive academic environment that is conducive to learning," the paper said.
Diab became a Canadian citizen in 1993 and was placed under house arrest by authorities last year while fighting a French extradition request, the paper said,
Four people were killed and 20 injured in the bombing at the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris in October 1980 after a bomb hidden in a motorcycle parked outside the reform synagogue exploded. In October 2007 French police said they had tracked down Diab, who was arrested in Canada in November.
