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| - Norway on Friday agreed to extradite to France a suspect linked to a 1982 attack in Paris that killed six people, bringing hope to families of the victims who have demanded a trial for almost 40 years. The Norwegian decision was taken during a council of ministers and cannot be appealed. The extradition is to be carried out within 10 days, a spokeswoman for Norway's intelligence service PST told AFP. Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed, a 61-year-old Palestinian who became a Norwegian citizen in 1997, is wanted by French authorities on suspicion of being one of the shooters in the attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris's Marais district, a historically Jewish quarter. The attack on August 9, 1982, which left six people dead and 22 injured, was blamed on the Abu Nidal Organisation, a splinter group of the militant Palestinian Fatah group. Abu Zayed, who has lived in Norway since 1991 where he goes by the name Osman, has maintained his innocence and has insisted he was in Monte Carlo at the time. He had appealed several court decisions in Norway ruling his extradition legal, to no avail. The final decision was left to the government. "Osman's appeal was examined in the council of ministers meeting before the king. It was rejected," PST spokeswoman Annett Aamodt said. "The justice ministry ordered the extradition to be carried out under an agreement between the Norwegian and French police and the decision is to be executed with 10 days," she added. Norway's decision was hailed by families of the victims. "The trial would finally be able to be held, with an accused on the stand," Avi Bitton, a lawyer representing three former employees of the Jo Goldenberg restaurant, told AFP. "It will have taken years of battles, of revelations in the media and legal activism to bring this trial to fruition," he added. France has requested Abu Zayed's extradition before, but Norway has had a policy of not extraditing its nationals. However, a recently implemented deal between the European Union, Norway and Iceland has paved the way for extradition. Abu Zayed's lawyer in Norway refused to comment on the ruling Friday, as he had not yet received the decision in writing. "I don't like France," his client had told an Oslo court in September. "I don't want to be imprisoned in France." In addition to Abu Zayed, France has also issued international arrest warrants for two suspects in Jordan and another in the West Bank. Jordan has repeatedly refused to extradite the two suspects. The affair is all the more explosive given media reports of a secret deal between French intelligence services and the Abu Nidal Organisation under which the latter's members would not be arrested if they refrained from committing further attacks on French soil. gd-phy/po/pma
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