French court orders release of Lebanon’s Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
Al Jazeera
Abdallah was given a life sentence for his role in the murders of USA’s Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimant.
A French court has ordered the release of a Lebanese person jailed for the killings of US and Israeli diplomats in France in the early 1980s.
On Friday, prosecutors said Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade, 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.
The office of France’s antiterrorism prosecutor has said it would appeal the decision.
Abdallah was given a life sentence in 1987 for his involvement in the murders of US diplomat Charles Ray in Paris and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in 1982, and in the attempted murder of US Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984.
Requests for Abdallah’s release have been rejected and annulled multiple times, including in 2003, 2012 and 2014.
