REPORT: Friends of George Abdallah stage sit-in outside French embassy

Friends of George Abdallah staged on Sunday a sit-in outside the French embassy, calling on Paris to release the Lebanese national, before the court session expected to look into the appeal presented by the French Prosecution refusing to release him.          

The protesters gathered outside the embassy, and chanted slogans denouncing the French reluctance in Abdallah’s release, and the political pressures exerted by the French Judiciary.
  
The French court is set to hold a session on Wednesday, while the final decision is expected to be issued on Thursday.              

The director general of the Justice Ministry Omar al-Natour had left Beirut on Saturday morning, heading to Paris to follow up on the case of George Abdallah with French officials.

The French judiciary decided Thursday the 10th of January 2013 to release Lebanese national George Ibrahim Abdallah "provided that he be deported", AFP reported, however the decision was deferred for no explained reason.

Abdallah was jailed 28 years ago for attacks on U.S. and Israeli diplomats in France, even though French law limits the maximum sentence of any prisoner to 18.

He was accused of engaging in commando operations carried out by the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions and the 1982 murders of U.S. military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov; the court was not able to present concrete evidence against him in this regard so far.

The General prosecution has previously appealed the decision of his release.


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