Attack
The bomb exploded inside a suitcase at the Turkish Airlines check-in
desk in the airport's south terminal, sending flames through the crowd
of passengers checking in for a flight to Istanbul. The bomb consisted
of a half kilo of
Semtex explosive connected to three portable
gas bottles (which explained the extensive burns on the victims).
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 death toll made the Orly bombing the bloodiest attack in France since the end of the
Algerian War in 1962.
The dead included a French child, and a man with dual U.S.-Greek citizenship.
The dual national was identified as Anthony Peter Schultze, who was
studying in Paris and came to the airport to see off his Turkish
fiancée. She was out of the check-in area when the bomb exploded, and
was uninjured.
ASALA claimed responsibility for the attack.
French Prime Minister
Pierre Mauroy
came to the airport and condemned the attack, promising to find and
punish the perpetrators. Later he visited the hospital where the most
seriously injured were being treated.
Investigation
Shortly after the Orly blast, the French police arrested 51 suspected
ASALA militants. According to the police, all the arrested came to
France within one year and had been under surveillance by intelligence
forces. The police confiscated weapons and explosives, including pistols
and submachine guns. ASALA threatened with military attacks on the
French interests around the world if "the French regime continues its
method of terror and terrorism against the Armenian people".
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.
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.
Garabedian confessed that the bomb was assembled at the home of an Armenian of Turkish nationality, Ohannes Semerci, in
Villiers-le-Bel.
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.
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.
Trial
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.
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 1995, over 1 million people in Armenia signed a petition to the
authorities in France calling for the release of Garabedian from prison.
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.
