Diab denies all charges.[9] His lawyer said the arrest was "a mistaken identification", and that Diab did not enter France in 1980.[2] Friends, colleagues and former professors of Diab expressed shock and bafflement at the news of his arrest. His thesis adviser, Louis Kriesberg, a noted scholar of conflict resolution,[10] said he never knew Diab to be in any way anti-Semitic and called the news "not credible".[11]