Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
10/9/2024–|Last updated: 10/9/202409:58 PM (Mecca time)
Paris- Last Monday’s session was the tenth session before the sentence enforcement judge in Lanmezan prison, who is responsible for studying the new request for conditional release of the Lebanese pro-Palestinian activist George Ibrahim Abdullah, who is considered the oldest prisoner in the world linked to the conflict in the Middle East, where he spent 40 years in prison. .
In light of the Public Prosecution’s continued refusal of repeated requests for release, Jean-Louis Chalancier, the Lebanese activist’s lawyer, denounced the strictness of the French judiciary, saying that he “clearly wants to die in prison” because the country’s law qualifies his client for release since 1999.
George Ibrahim Abdullah, who is detained in French state prisons, is considered the oldest political prisoner in Europe, as he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 after he was convicted of complicity in the assassination of Israeli Yakov Prisemantov and American diplomat Charles Robert Day in Paris in 1982, in addition to the attempted assassination of the American Consul General Robert Ohm. In Strasbourg in 1984.
“Political session”
In a hearing that lasted five straight hours, the lawyer assigned to the case, Chalancier, described the difficult discussions during which deputy prosecutors at the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) argued regarding his client’s continued detention as a “political session.”
Chalancier said, in an interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, that the Deputy Public Prosecutors “wanted to confirm that Abdullah is still dangerous, that all of his supporters were terrorists, and that the pro-Palestinian organizations that he supported in France were comparable to terrorists, in addition to his association with Hezbollah and the Hamas movement.” They claimed that she had asked to exchange him with a hostage, and all these arguments are exaggerated and only seek to keep him within the prison walls.”
Regarding the documents that were presented in this file during or before Monday’s session, the lawyer explained that they are “not real,” explaining that they are “meaningless notes by the police.”
He added, “This is what we mentioned over the course of 10 years, when French intelligence focused on George’s conversion to Islam, which is unacceptable, because its goal is to justify not releasing him on the grounds that he is a terrorist and dangerous Islamist, and all of that is a blatant lie that was later recognized.”
The spokesman said that the Public Prosecution justified its position by claiming that the Lebanese activist would return to his country after four decades in prison to engage in activity that might be political, considering that the hypothesis of the danger of a repetition of the armed struggle movement that has no real existence left is “ridiculous.”
It is worth noting that George Abdullah – who is 73 years old – was active in the ranks of the “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” when he was arrested on October 24, 1984, and today he has become a face of the struggle for the liberation of Palestine in the world. .
External influences
Lawyer Chalancier pointed out that external influences were controlling this case from the beginning, including the lawyer who was paid by the police, and the American lawyer who conducted the investigation, as it was conducted by the United States instead of the French police.
George Abdullah’s defense clients and supporters believe that many parties stand behind his continued detention. When the judicial system initially approved his release on condition of his deportation to Lebanon in 2013, the embassies of the United States and Israel intervened to influence the course of the case.
In this context, the Lebanese activist’s lawyer added that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other American politicians intervened to influence the course of the file alongside the French authorities, in addition to the refusal of former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to sign the expulsion order that would have granted him the right to return to Lebanon. .
Seven years later, in 2020, parole attempts were rejected again by former French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.
Commenting on the above, Chalancier stressed that there are many political interventions in this matter, “and it is clear that there is a desire from the French state to ensure that he is not released, otherwise we would have obtained an expulsion order, and we facilitated the procedures to transfer him to his country, Lebanon, many years ago.”
The current war
Pending deliberations on November 15 and requesting an appeal at the court in Paris, the French lawyer believes that the Criminal Court is following an ideological position, through which it seeks to exploit the context of the war in the Middle East to justify “fear of the risk of returning to crime” if he is released. Abdullah, and arrived in Lebanon.
He explained this by saying, “In the beginning, they used the events of October 7, 2023 in the Gaza Strip, and that he has a charismatic personality that qualifies him to hold power in Lebanon in any way, and these are elements that are not based on any proven facts, of course.”
When Jean-Louis Chalancier was asked about the Public Prosecution’s right to use the political context in its arguments, he confirmed the possibility of doing so, even going so far as to compare the Lebanese fighter to a fighter affiliated with ISIS, considering that “this fighter cannot be released after being sentenced to life imprisonment.” “.
For this reason, the lawyer believes that the representatives want to criminalize the resistance of activist Abdullah – which they do not recognize – because his motivation for the actions he committed was clearly “resistance to the United States and Israel,” and for them resistance exists only in French history.