French court orders release of armed Lebanese leader George Abdullah after 40 years

PARIS: A French court has ruled that Lebanese citizen George Ibrahim Abdullah will be released after serving 40 years in prison on condition that he leave France.

The Paris Appeals Court approved his conditional release on July 25, after which he will be deported to Lebanon.

George Abdullah is a former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Organization. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1987.

He was accused of the 1982 assassinations of US military attaché Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yakov Barsimentov in Paris, and the 1984 attempted assassination of US Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg, France.

The US Department of Justice and French prosecutors opposed his release for several years, and his requests for release had already been rejected eight times.
In a hearing in February, the court also said that George Abdullah must take steps to compensate the families of his victims.

There was no immediate comment from Abdullah’s lawyer, the Lebanese government or the US embassy.