A French court on Friday ordered the conditional release of a Lebanese terrorist, who has been in prison since 1984 for his role in the murders of Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov and U.S. military attaché Col. Charles Ray in Paris.
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life imprisonment. France’s antiterrorism prosecutor intends to appeal the decision, a spokesperson told AFP.
“In [a] decision dated today, the court granted Georges Ibrahim Abdallah conditional release from December 6, subject to the condition that he leaves French territory and not appear there again,” AFP quoted prosecutors as saying.
Abdallah was given such a conditional release before in 2013, after passing a parole committee. But his release was prevented because France’s then-interior minister declined to authorize his deportation.
An accomplice of Abdallah shot Barsimantov, the second secretary of Israel’s embassy in France, three times in the head on the street in front of his wife and 8-year-old daughter in March 1982. The shooter was never apprehended but the murder was traced back to Abdallah.
Friday’s ruling by the tribunal d’application des peines—the court in charge of overseeing the conditions and enforcement of a prisoner’s sentence—bypasses such government approval.
Abdallah, 73, maintains that he acted as a political fighter for Palestinian rights, rejecting the label of a criminal. He has consistently refused to express remorse for his actions.
Abdallah was linked to the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine before founding a splinter terrorist group, the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF).
