France had been asking for several years for the extradition of Walid Abdulrahman Abou Zayed, established in Norway since 1991, who in the past denied any involvement in the attack attributed to the terrorist Palestinian group Fatah-Revolutionary Council (Fatah-CR) of Abu Nidal.

Authorities in Norway have announced the arrest of a man suspected of being one of the perpetrators of the rue des Rosiers attack against a Jewish restaurant which left six dead and twenty-two injured in 1982 in Paris.

On August 9, 1982, a grenade was thrown by a group of four terrorists into Jo Goldenberg’s restaurant, exploding in the midst of about 50 customers, followed by a shooting assault. The commando threw a second grenade to cover its escape, and continued to shoot in the alleys of Paris. Behind them, the horror: six dead and twenty-two wounded, some of whom are seriously hit.

“We can confirm that the PST (Norwegian intelligence) arrested a man in Skien, in southern Norway, on an arrest warrant issued by the French authorities,” confirmed a spokesperson for the Norwegian police.

France had been asking for several years for the extradition of Walid Abdulrahman Abou Zayed, established in Norway since 1991, who in the past denied any involvement in the attack attributed to the terrorist Palestinian group Fatah-Revolutionary Council (Fatah-CR) of Abu Nidal.

Norwegian police didn’t provided the identity of the arrested man.

“An extradition request has been issued by the French authorities, it will be examined carefully to see if the conditions are met,” the police spokesperson said.

Abou Zayed, in his sixties, now naturalized Norwegian, denies his involvement, saying that “there is a mistake about the person”.

For years, without success, French investigators had been struggling to arrest the terrorists.

But, according to daily newspaper Le Parisien, archives showed that underhand and to avoid new attacks on the French territory, the French secret services and members of the Abu Nidal group concluded an agreement under which the intelligence service would do  nothing to bring the group to justice, and in return, the terrorists promised to consider France as a “sanctuary.”