Lebanese George Abdullah Embraces Freedom After Four Decades Behind Bars and Returns to His Country on Friday

Over four decades, Lebanese George Ibrahim Abdullah spent his days in a cell measuring 11 square meters, where a red flag with a drawing of Che Guevara and posters supporting the Palestinian cause were raised, as he prepares to leave on Friday after the French judiciary ordered his release.


The Court of Appeal issued a decision on July 17 to release the 74-year-old activist. After one of the longest incarcerations in France, Abdullah is set to leave the La Santé prison (southwest) on Friday and return to Lebanon.


The prison is located kilometers away from the peaks of the Pyrenees mountains, which were not visible from the cell window in the prison, where 140 long-term prisoners descend.


Abdullah was arrested in 1984 and convicted by the French judiciary in 1987 for the assassination of an Israeli diplomat and another American in Paris. Abdullah moved between several detention centers in Saint-Maur and Melun in the center of the country, and Clairvaux in the east, before being placed in cell number 221 where a handwritten sign was placed with the name 'Abdullah'.


In this cell located in building 'A', on the day the judiciary issued the release order, the deputy from the Resilient France party, Andréa Torrina, visited Abdullah, accompanied by a team from Agence France-Presse.