Friends of Lebanese detainee Georges Ibrahim Abdallah were informed on Wednesday that the French judiciary issued a verdict declining the conditional release of Abdallah.
Following the decision, Abdallah's relatives and friends stated that they will be holding a protest on Sunday outside the US Embassy in Awkar, vowing that they will be escalating their movements. Earlier, relatives of Abdallah staged a sit-in outside the French embassy in Lebanon, calling for his release after 30 years had passed since he was detained in France.
The General prosecution has previously appealed the decision of his release. Abdallah had been in prison for over 28 years, 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; the court was not able to present concrete evidence against him thus far.
He was arrested in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison three years later for his alleged involvement in the 1982 murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov.