The Propalstinian convicted to be released after 40 years

Georges Abdala, a 74-year-old Lebanese teacher who became a left symbol for the Palestinian cause, should be released from France on Friday after 41 years in prison.

Described by his lawyer as “the man who spent the longest time in prison for events related to Israeli-Palestinian conflict” is expected to be released directly to Beirut.

Sentenced in 1987 for complicity in the killings in France of two diplomats – an American, one Israeli – Abdala was gradually forgotten by the wider public.

But his release remained a cause of Célèbre for activists in Marxist-Leninist left, with which he is still identified.

His strictly looking bearded face continued to peek from banners into left -wing demonstrations; And once a year, protesters gathered to ask for his freedom outside his prison in the Pyrenees. Three French municipalities, led by the left, have declared him a “honorary citizen”.

Although she is eligible for conditional release since 1999, he saw consistent freedom requests. According to supporters, this is due to pressure on the French government from the US and Israel.

Recently interviewed by French news agency AFP in his cell in Lanemazan prison, he said he kept healthy by focusing on the Palestinian “fight”.

“If I hadn’t had this … Well, 40 years – it can turn your brain to mess,” he said.

On the walls of her cell, Abdal retained a picture of the revolutionary Che Guevara from the 1960s Che Guevara and postcards from supporters around the world. One desk was covered with piles of newspapers.

Born in 1951 in a Christian family in North Lebanon, at the end of the 70s, Abdal helped to create Lebanese armed revolutionary factions (LARF), a small Marxist group dedicated to the fight against Israel and his closest ally, the United States.

At a time when Lebanon was involved in a civil war. In 1978 and again in 1982, Israel invaded South Lebanon to combat the Palestinian fighters based there.

The Abdalla group decided to hit Israeli and American goals in Europe and made five attacks in France. In 1982, its members shot and killed US diplomat Charles Ray in Strasbourg and Israeli diplomat Yakov Barcimanov in Paris. In addition, a car bomb, accused by Larf, killed two French bombing experts.

Abdal was arrested in Lyon in 1984. Out of French scouts, he believes he was followed by Israeli killers and surrendered to a police station. Initially, he was only accused of having false passports and criminal associations.

A little later French citizen was abducted in North Lebanon, and the French secret service entered into negotiations through Algeria to engineer an exchange.

The French citizen was released, but just before Abdal was released police in Paris, he found a weapon cash in his apartment, including the gun used to kill diplomats. This made his liberation impossible.

Two years later, in the course of the process, Paris was hit by a number of terrorist attacks that killed 13 people. They were accused by politicians and media in Abdala’s allies who were trying to press France to release him. It was later established that they were actually the work of the Lebanese Shiite Group of Hezbollah, according to Iran’s instructions.

In the process, Abdala denied involvement in killings, but defended their legitimacy. He received a life sentence.

Out of more than 10 requests for launch since 1999, only one has come to success. But in 2013, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote to the French government, expressing the hope that he could find a “way to challenge the legality” of a court decision to release Abdala.

Later, her message was publicly announced by WikiLeaks.

The Interior Minister Manuel Waltz then refused to sign the expulsion order, on which Abdalla’s liberation was conditional.

This year, the Court of Appeal ruled that the duration of Abdallah’s detention was “disproportionate” and that it was no longer a threat. It again states that its release should be immediately followed by expulsion from France.

“This is a victory for justice, but it is also a political scandal that it has not been released before, thanks to the behavior of the United States and consistent French presidents,” said his lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset.

Among the people who held a campaign for his release was the winner of the Nobel Literature Award in 2022, Annie Herno, who said he was “the victim of state justice, from which France should be ashamed.”

Yves Bone, the intelligence chief, who tried to negotiate Abdala’s exchange in 1985 and is now a member of the far-right national rally, said he was “treated worse than a serial killer” and that the “United States is obsessed with keeping him in prison.”

According to a report in the Le Mond newspaper, no Palestinian prisoner – even those sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel – has not served more than 40 years in prison. Abdala serves 41.