The Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Monday, July 21, having made an appeal in cassation against the liberation of the Lebanese activist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. This “Appeals does not suspend the execution of the decision”said however the press release, not preventing Mr. Abdsallah from leaving his French prison as planned on Friday to return to Lebanon.
The Court of Appeal ordered Thursday, July 17, the release of the activist of the Lebanese revolutionary armed fractions (Farl) aged 74, provided that one who is one of the oldest prisoners in France after forty years of detention leaves the territory and returned to it. His release from Lannemezan prison (Hautes-Pyrénées) will take place on Friday. It is then planned to take a flight for Beirut. An organized departure with the Lebanese authorities, who have delighted with this release claimed by them for years.
In its press release, the public prosecutor’s office justifies this appeal by estimating that the decision of the Court of Appeal “Does not comply with case law” of the Court of Cassation, “According to which a person sentenced to life imprisonment for acts of terrorism cannot benefit from a parole without probationary measure”for example an electronic bracelet in France for several months, or obligations with accounts to be rendered to a judge.
The former Farl chief, a group of Lebanese Christians Marxist active in the 1980s and had been dissolved for a long time, had been sentenced in 1987 to life imprisonment for complicity in assassinations of American and Israeli diplomats in Paris, in 1982.
Liberable for over twenty-five years, he had previously seen his ten requests for releases failed. This time, the court and then the court of appeal said they were favorable, judging “Disproportionate” the duration of detention of this inmate ” age “ With regard to the crimes committed. During the hearing on appeal, the national anti -terrorist prosecution then the public prosecutor’s office opposed this release.
“If they have agreed to free myself, it is thanks to this mobilization which is ascending”estimated the Lebanese activist Propaletinian during an interview in her cell with deputy Andrée Taurinya (Loire, rebellious France), during a visit to the parliamentarian at Lannemezan prison (Hautes-Pyrénées), which the Agency France-Presse (AFP) was able to attend, on July 17, just after the decision.