Georges Ibrahim Abdallah’s prison release on July 25 is conditional: He must leave France and never return.
A French court has ordered the release of pro-Palestinian Lebanese fighter Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who has been imprisoned for 40 years for his role in the killings of two foreign diplomats in France in the early 1980s.
The Paris Appeals Court ordered on Thursday that Abdallah, 74, be freed from a prison in southern France on July 25 on the condition that he leave French territory and never return.
The former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for complicity in the 1982 murders of United States military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris and the attempted murder of US Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984.
First detained in 1984 and convicted in 1987, Abdallah is one of the longest serving prisoners in France as most prisoners serving life sentences are freed after less than 30 years.
The detainee’s brother, Robert Abdallah, told the AFP news agency in Lebanon on Thursday that he was overjoyed by the news.
“We’re delighted. I didn’t expect the French judiciary to make such a decision nor for him to ever be freed, especially after so many failed requests for release,” he was quoted as saying. “For once, the French authorities have freed themselves from Israeli and US pressures.”
Abdallah’s lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset also welcomed the decision: “It’s both a judicial victory and a political scandal that he was not released earlier.”
Abdallah is expected to be deported to Lebanon.
Prosecutors may file an appeal with France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, but it is not expected to be processed quickly enough to halt his release next week.
Abdallah has been up for release for 25 years, but the US – a civil party to the case – has consistently opposed his leaving prison. Lebanese authorities have repeatedly said Abdallah should be freed from jail and had written to the appeals court to say they would organise his return home to Beirut.
In November, a French court ordered his release on the condition Abdallah leaves France.
But French prosecutors, arguing that he had not changed his political views, appealed the decision, which was consequently suspended.
A verdict was supposed to have been delivered in February, but the Paris Appeals Court postponed it, saying it was unclear whether Abdallah had proof that he had paid compensation to the plaintiffs – something he has consistently refused to do.
The court re-examined the latest request for his release last month.
During the closed-door hearing, Chalanset told the judges that 16,000 euros ($18,535) had been placed in the prisoner’s bank account and were at the disposal of civil parties in the case, including the US.
Abdallah, who has never expressed regret for his actions, has always insisted he is a “fighter” who battled for the rights of Palestinians and not a “criminal”.
The Paris court has described his behaviour in prison as irreproachable and said in November that he posed “no serious risk in terms of committing new terrorism acts”.
Abdallah still enjoys some support from several public figures in France, including left-wing members of parliament and Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux, but has mostly been forgotten by the general public.
