French court orders release of Lebanese militant imprisoned since 1984 for Paris killings

Georges Ibrahim Abdallah was convicted over 1982 murders of two foreign diplomats in Paris

Georges Ibrahim Abdallah during his trial in Lyon, in July 1986, with his lawyer Jacques Verges. AFP

A French court on Friday ordered the release of pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, jailed for 40 years after being convicted over the killing of two foreign diplomats, prosecutors said.

The court said Abdallah, first detained in 1984 and convicted in 1987 over the 1982 murders, would be released on December 6 on the condition that he leaves France.

French anti-terror prosecutors said in a statement to The National that they would appeal within 24 hours.

The founder of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), which was an offshoot of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abdallah is the face of a violent period in France when attacks related to the Middle East were perpetrated regularly.

The 11 requests for release he has made since 2001 have mostly been rejected as a result of his refusal to repudiate the killings or compensate the victims' relatives, and because his return to Lebanon would spark new upheavals.

An inmate of the Lannemezan prison in south-west France, Abdallah, now 73, has always acknowledged his involvement in the murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris. Throughout he has insisted he is a “fighter” who battled for the rights of Palestinians and not a “criminal”.

Born the son of a Lebanese army officer in Qoubaiyat, a village in the north, Abdallah became a secondary school teacher. Revolutionary politics took over and after a series of attacks attributed to his group he was arrested in Lyon collecting the deposit on a property in October 1984. The search of properties under the nom de guerre Abdel Kader Saadi turned up radio transmitters and automatic weapons.

Initially sentenced to four years for possession of arms, the pressure on the authorities to press for a life sentence was immense. A bombing campaign thought to be led by Abdallah's brother Emile in 1986 led to 10 more deaths. A new trial opened in 1987.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati asked France on a visit for the authorities to release him and described Abdallah as “a political prisoner” in 2012. He had been eligible to apply for parole since 1999 but all his previous applications had been turned down, except in 2013 when he was granted release on the condition he was expelled from France.

After a phone call lobbying the French government from Hillary Clinton, then US Secretary of State, the interior minister Manuel Valls refused to go through with the order and Abdallah remained in jail.

Abdallah's current lawyer, Jean-Louis Chalanset, said Friday's decision was “a legal and a political victory”. His legal team maintains that Abdallah has spent the longest time in prison in the world for acts related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.