Orly Airport attack

Orly Airport attack
Location	Paris-Orly Airport, Paris, France
Date	15 July 1983
Attack type	Bombing
Death(s)	8
Injured	55
Perpetrator(s)	Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia

The Orly Airport attack was the 15 July 1983 bombing of a Turkish Airlines check-in counter at Orly Airport in Paris, France, by the Armenian militant organization ASALA as part of its campaign for the recognition of and reparations for the Armenian Genocide.^[1] The explosion killed eight people and injured 55.^[2]

The bomb exploded inside a suitcase at the Turkish Airlines check-in desk in the airport's south terminal. Three people were killed immediately in the blast and another five died in hospital. Four of the victims were French, two were Turkish, one was American, and one was Swedish. The bomb consisted of a half kilo of Semtex explosive connected to three portable gas bottles (which explained the extensive burns on the victims).^[3] ASALA claimed responsibility for the attack.

French police detained 29-year old Varoujan Garabedian (Varadjian Garbidjian), a Syrian national of Armenian extraction, who confessed to planting the bomb at the airport. Garabedian claimed he was the head of the French branch of ASALA. At the airport, Garabedian said he had too much luggage and gave a passenger $65 to check the bag for him. The bomb was intended to explode aboard a Turkish Airways plane en route from Paris to Istanbul, but it detonated prematurely on a baggage ramp.^[1][4] The Orly bombing came only five days before the second Armenian world congress was due to open at Lausanne. ^[5]

Garabedian confessed that the bomb was assembled at the home of an Armenian of Turkish nationality, Ohannes Semerci, in Villiers-le-Bel.^[4] In Marseilles, police later arrested another Turkish citizen of Armenian extraction, 22 years old Nayir Soner, an electronics specialist who was suspected of assembling the bomb.^[2][6]

A few days after the French arrest of fifty-one Armenians in connection with the Orly bombing, ASALA bombed the Air France office and the French Embassy in Tehran, and threatened more attacks. ^[5]

French press alleged that the French Socialist government had struck a secret deal with ASALA in January 1982, in which there would be no further attacks on French soil in return for French recognition that the Turks had attempted genocide against the Armenians in 1915. Under the terms of the deal ASALA members supposedly were also granted unrestricted use of French airports, and four ASALA members charged with the takeover of the Turkish consulate in Paris, in which a security guard was killed, were given light sentences (seven years in jail). Garabedian told French investigators that the violation of the secret pact by ASALA was an accident, and that the suitcase bomb was supposed to detonate on board the Turkish airliner, not on French soil. But the Orly airport attack forced the French government to crack down on ASALA.^[7][8]

During an 11-day jury trial in suburban Créteil, Garabedian, defended by Jacques Vergès, denied his earlier confession. However, he was found guilty and on 3 March 1985 he was given a life sentence. Nayir Soner, accused of buying bottles of gas used to make the bomb, was given a 15-year sentence, and Ohannes Semerci, in whose apartment ammunition and dynamite were found, received a 10-year sentence.^[9] The victims were defended by Gide Loyrette Nouel: principal Jean Loyrette argued on terrorism in general and against claims of Armenian genocide; his collaborators Gilles de Poix and Christian de Thezillat argued on the attack itself, to demonstrate the guilt of the three defendants. Several Turkish scholars — Sina Aksin, Türkkaya Ataöv, Avedis Simon Hacinlyian, Hasan Köni, Mümtaz Soysal — testified for the prosecution during the trial.

In 2001, after 17 years in jail, Garabedian was released on the condition he was deported to Armenia.^[10] He was greeted by Prime Minister of Armenia Andranik Markarian, who expressed happiness at Garabedian's release.^[11]

In an interview in 2008, Garabedian explained the Orly bombing was a protest against the hanging execution of Levon Ekmekjian in Istanbul in 1982, and he planned to destroy a Turkish Airlines plane, which was to transport high-ranking representatives of the Turkish secret services, as well as Turkish generals and diplomats. Garabedian claims that as a result of the attack 10 Turks were killed and 60 were injured.^[12]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} The New York Times. Sympathy Won't Help
2. ^ ^{a b} The New York Times, October 9, 1983. French Hold Armenians in Orly Airport Bombing
3. ^ M. H. Syed. Islamic terrorism: myth or reality. Gyan Publishing House, 2002. ISBN 8178351404, 9788178351407, p. 43
4. ^ ^{a b} The New York Times. Paris says suspect confesses attack
5. ^ ^{a b} Armenian Terrorism by Paul Wilkinson. The World Today © 1983 Royal Institute of International Affairs
6. ^ The Washington Post, July 24, 1983. Dutch Hold Suspect in Brussels Killing
7. ^ Jack Anderson, Dale Van Atta. Lebanese Is Key To Bombings Rocking France. Newsday, October 29, 1986, p. 80.
8. ^ Christian Science Monitor, July 19, 1983. Armenian bombing at Orly ends pact between Socialists and terrorists
9. ^ United Press International. Foreign News Briefs. March 4, 1985; Verdict of the trial.
10. ^ Agence France Presse, April 24, 2001. Armenian terrorist freed and deported from France.
11. ^ "Armenian premier meets with released ASALA member". Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Newsline. May 7, 2001. http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1142396.html. 
12. ^ Gevorg Haroutyounyan. "Robbing the others of their glory": Interview with Varoujan Garabedian, Hayots Ashkhar newspaper, 2008.

Bibliography

• Terrorist Attack at Orly: Statements and Evidence Presented at the Trial, February 19 - March 2, 1985, Ankara, Faculty of Political Science, 1985.
• Michael M. Gunter, “Pursuing the Just Cause of their People”: A Study of Contemporary Armenian Terrorism, Westport-New York-London: Greenwood Press, 1986.
• Francis P. Hyland, Armenian Terrorism: The Past, the Present, the Prospects, Boulder-San Francisco-Oxford, Westview Press, 1991.
• Gaïdz Minassian, Guerre et terrorisme arméniens, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2002.