Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, born on 2 April 1951, is a Lebanese left-wing militant. Born in the town Al Qoubaiyat in northern Lebanon, he joined the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions when the group formed following the discontinuation of the PFLP-EO. He became leader of the organization, and conducted its operations from France, where he used the aliases Salih al-Masri and Abdu-Qadir Saadi. He was arrested in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for the 1982 murder of Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Ray, who was an assistant US military attaché and murder of Israeli diplomat Yaakov Bar-Simantov outside his home in Paris on 3 April 1982, as well as involvement in the attempted assassination of former American consul in Strasbourg Robert O. Homme, who survived a shooting on 26 March 1984 after a gun was found in his apartment during a police raid. This all happened during the 1982 Lebanon War. Abdallah is imprisoned in France, and has released communiqués from prison in solidarity with prisoners from other militant groups, such as Action Directe and GRAPO. He is the uncle of Chloé Delaume. He is a Christian. After his capture, he testified "I do what I do because of the injustice done to human rights where Palestine is concerned."
Release from prison
In 1999, Abdallah completed the minimum portion of his life sentence, but several requests for parole were denied. In 2003, the court granted him parole but the US Department of State objected to the court decision. Dominique Perben, the Minister of Justice at the time, made an appeal against the release. Every two years Abdallah has the right to ask for a new release date, which has been refused more than five times. New laws were created for the prevention of reoffending, which were applied retroactively on his case. On 10 January 2013, Abdallah was granted parole on appeal by the Chamber of Sentences Application of Paris on the condition of an order of deportation from France. Abdallah's lawyer said that his client hopes to return to Lebanon and take up a teaching job. Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman of the US State Department, declared to the press the US government's objection to his release on 11 January 2013. The United States ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin stated "I am disappointed by the decision today.... Life imprisonment was the appropriate sentence for Mr Abdallah’s serious crimes, and there is legitimate concern that Mr. Abdallah would continue to represent a danger to the international community if he were allowed to go free." 14 January 2013 was the scheduled date for Abdallah to return to Lebanon after almost 30 years of imprisonment in France. However Manuel Valls, the Minister of the Interior, refused to sign an administrative paper for deporting Abdallah. As a result of Valls's refusal, court proceedings took place on 15 January 2013. The prosecutor, under the Minister of Justice's authority, made a second appeal against his release. A complaint was sent in June 2013 against France to the investigators of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Another complaint was sent to the French Supreme Court against Minister Valls for not signing the administrative paper necessary for Abdallah's release.
Honors
In December 2013, the French city ofBagnolet voted to make Abdallah an "honorary resident." The city council's motion described him as a “communist activist” and a “political prisoner” who “belongs to the resistance movement of Lebanon" and is a "determined defender of the Palestinian just cause."
