Lebanese militant Georges Abdallah to be released from French prison after four decades

Prisoner scheduled to leave France for Beirut on July 25

Georges Ibrahim Abdallah leaving court in Pau, France, during a previous hearing in 2010. AFP

Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a Lebanese citizen who has spent almost 40 years in prison over his part in deadly attacks on Israeli and US diplomats, can be released, a French court ruled on Thursday.

Abdallah, 73, was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for complicity in the 1982 murders in Paris of US military attache Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov, and the attempted murder of US Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984.

French officials have described Abdallah as a terrorist. “France reaffirms its solidarity with the relatives of the American and Israeli victims of the heinous terrorist acts for which Mr Abdallah was convicted,” the Foreign Ministry said.

The Paris Court of Appeal has “granted the request for conditional release made by Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, effective from July 25, 2025, on the condition that he leaves the national territory”, a judicial source told The National.

The ruling is “both a judicial victory and a political scandal”, said his lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset, who maintains that his client has spent the longest time in prison for acts related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Abdallah is scheduled to fly to Beirut on July 25, escorted by French officers. “He has a family, he has a village. He'll live with the support of his brothers,” Mr Chalanset said.

Abdallah's exact role in the murder of the diplomats remains unclear. At the time, the weapon used to kill them was found in a hotel room that he used in Paris, but he has never admitted any connection to their deaths, his lawyer said.

The former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade, which was an offshoot of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abdallah has been eligible for release since 1999. However, he remained incarcerated despite filing 11 requests.

George Ibrahim Abdallah during his 1986 trial. AFP

In November, a Paris court granted his release on condition that he leave France and does not return. It said that Abdallah had been irreproachable in prison and posed “no serious risk to renew terrorism acts”.

The office of France's antiterrorism prosecutor appealed against the decision, automatically keeping him in prison. The Paris Court of Appeal hearing took place on December 19 and judges were due to give their ruling in February, but the decision was postponed to July.

Mr Chalanset said that Abdallah wants to return to his home village of Qoubaiyat in northern Lebanon to end his life there peacefully. Abdallah, a self-proclaimed Marxist, has always described himself as a “fighter” who battled for the rights of Palestinians and not a “criminal”. Lebanese authorities describe him as a “political prisoner”.

Protesters hold placards reading 'Free Georges Abdallah' at a rally in Toulouse, south-west France, in December 2024. AFP

The US is reported to have pressured France to block Abdallah's release. In January 2013, his eighth request to be freed was successful, but the Interior Ministry refused to validate his expulsion from France. It has been reported that Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State at the time, had called Prime Minister Laurent Fabius to ask for him to not be released.

In November last year, the US Department of Justice wrote to French judges to oppose Abdallah's hearing, saying that his return to Lebanon would represent a threat to public order and highlighting that Abdallah had refused to repudiate the killings.

Expressing remorse is a moral request that is not required by law, according to Mr Chalanset. He has also criticised the US arguments, pointing out that the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade no longer exists and no acts have been carried out by it in Europe or the US since 1984. “It was clear that he preferred to die in prison rather than show remorse,” Mr Chalanset said.