freepalestine
10th January 2013, 15:01
Lebanese leftist Georges Abdallah, jailed for 28 years, to be freed
Published Thursday, January 10, 2013
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a pro-Palestinian Lebanese leftist who has spent 28 years in French prison, will be released and expelled from France, French media reported.
Thursday’s court decision upheld a December ruling, which had been appealed by the general prosecutor. As part of his conditional release, Abdallah is required to leave France before January 14.
Abdallah was arrested in 1984 over the murders of Charles Robert Ray, an American military attache, and Yacov Barsimentov, an Israeli embassy advisor, in Paris in 1982. He was condemned to life in prison in 1987 for complicity in the assassinations.
Over the years, Abdallah became a controversial symbol of 1980s terrorism for some, and of miscarriages of justice for others. Since 1999, Abdallah has applied for parole eight times.
(Al-Akhbar)
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/lebanese-leftist-georges-abdallah-jailed-28-years-be-freed
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Past articles
Georges Abdallah: Exposing the Farce of French Justice
http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/5cols/leading_images/Abdallah_Protest_pic_1.jpg
Protesters gather in solidarity with Georges Abdallah in Beirut. Abdallah originally should have been released from prison after 18 months. But his case soon took a very different turn, leading to his conviction and life imprisonment. (Photo: Marwan Tahtah)
By: Othman Tazghart
Published Wednesday, January 18, 2012
It is an open secret that radical rebel Georges Abdallah, largely ignored by western media, was illegally sentenced to life in prison close to three decades ago. But French authorities continue to insist on keeping him behind bars, even after he has completed his prison term. .........
Paris – French authorities are insisting on keeping an ex-fighter in the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF) in prison, despite the fact that 28 years have passed since he was first detained. This is a major breach of French legal procedures and the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that prisoners serving a life sentence must be released after serving a maximum of 18 years.
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who began his struggle as a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), before joining the LARF, was arrested in Lyon on October 1984. At the time, the LARF was accused of a number of high profile commando operations, the most prominent of which were the assassination of the American military attache in Paris, Charles Robert Ray (18 January 1982) and the Israeli diplomat, Ya’acov Bar-Simantov (3 April 1982).
■ Georges Abdallah: Not All Lebanese Citizen Are Equal by Nader Fawz
Initially, French authorities could not find enough evidence to charge Abdallah in connection with those cases. Apart from some leaflets showing he belonged to the LARF and a fake Algerian passport in his possession, the authorities were hard pressed to make a case against him. Therefore, when he came before the court for the first time in July 1986, he was indicted on only one charge, the use of a fake travel document.
In his memoirs, titled The Elysee Years, and published in 1988, Jacques Attali, the adviser to President Francois Mitterand, wrote on 6 March 1985: “We have no proof against Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. Therefore, the only thing we can charge him with is possession of a fake passport.”
Abdallah originally should have been released from prison after 18 months. But his case soon took a very different turn, leading to his conviction and life imprisonment.
Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, who was a member of Abdallah’s defense team (then headed by the notorious lawyer Jacques Verges), recalls the details of the “judicial conspiracy” against the Lebanese revolutionary, saying: “Abdallah was suddenly recalled to the court on 28 February 1987. We were surprised that he was facing different charges and new evidence which was not included in his file during the first trial. The prosecution claimed that weapons had been found in secret hideaways and flats belonging to Abdallah. This was taken as proof of his participation in the commando operations carried out by the LARF in France in 1982.”
Coutant-Peyre adds: “The court did not hesitate in sentencing our client to life imprisonment, despite the protests of the defense team that the evidence against him was not included in the original trial and was fabricated later to convict him retroactively. This was a major breach of legal procedure.” It was clear that Abdallah had become the victim of an intelligence conspiracy.
However, the details of the conspiracy plotted by the French DST (internal intelligence) were not revealed until the 10th anniversary of Abdallah’s conviction. In his memoirs, titled The Fight Against Espionage: Memoirs of the Director of DST, the former director of French intelligence, Yves Bonnet, also revealed some of the threads of the conspiracy.
“We were able to gather enough information against Abdallah after the head of the anti-terrorist network, Jean Francois Clair, succeeded in recruiting an informant who was very close to the LARF,” Bonnet wrote. He only referred to the informant at the time as “Jean Paul M.” and indicated that he was a lawyer.
In July 2001, when Abdallah had already been in prison for 17 years, the lawyer Jean Paul Mazurier, a member of Abdallah’s defense team, threw a bombshell that shook the French judiciary system. In a long interview with Liberation, he confessed to being the informant alluded to by Yves Bonnet. The lawyer revealed in detail how French intelligence had recruited him to spy on his client (which in itself is enough evidence to repeal Abdallah’s sentence).
Mazurier added that the DST told him to make his client think that he shared his belief in revolutionary ideas and the struggle for the Palestinian cause. Abdallah began to trust him and brought him to meet his friends in the LARF in Lebanon. This made it easier for French intelligence to penetrate their group and gather evidence to convict Abdallah.
As a result of the scandal ignited by the confessions of the lawyer-informant, everyone expected Abdallah’s defense team to raise a challenge to the court to overturn the conviction against its client. French law prohibits the use of lawyers, doctors, or journalists to spy on the accused and to gather evidence against them.
However, the defense team did no such thing. They decided to wait until 2002 to present a request to release Abdallah because his sentence had expired. Despite repeated rejections of these requests over a ten year period, the defense team has refrained from putting in a request to overturn the conviction on the basis of the espionage incident. Everyone Al-Akhbar spoke to on the defense team refused to discuss the reasons behind this. One of them said: “That question should be put to Abdallah’s comrades in the LARF.”
As for the former director of DST, Yves Bonnet, he admits now that what happened was “an illegal intelligence conspiracy.”
“We really did behave like criminals in this case,” he said, adding, “I have to add my voice today to those who are calling for Abdallah’s release. It is time to put an end to the gross injustice we committed against him.”
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/3479
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Paris Continues to Extort Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
By: Othman Tazghart
Published Thursday, October 25, 2012
Wednesday afternoon, a large crowd gathered outside Lannemezan prison in the southwest of France. They were commemorating the 28th anniversary of the arrest of the longest held Arab prisoner of conscience in France, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
One day earlier, Abdallah’s lawyer, Jacques Vergès, had stood facing the court, for the eighth time in nine years, to request the enactment of the decision of the regional court of parole authorizing his release in October 2003.
During that time, the French government managed to block the decision to free Abdallah using several bureaucratic pretexts. .....
The protest outside his prison saw Vergès leading around 200 people, mainly consisting of human rights and leftist activists, in addition to members of the International Solidarity Committee for Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
“The public prosecutor would not give up on the logic of extortion and kept demanding an apology from Abdallah”The cheers and chants from his supporters sounded loud enough to reach him inside his cell. They called for his release and supported his perseverance in the face of the extortion practiced by the French courts.
French authorities are demanding that Abdallah apologize, express regret, and repudiate his revolutionary ideas and actions, in order to implement his legal parole. He was accused of participating in commando operations carried out by the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions, though the court had no concrete evidence against him.
The demonstrators repeated slogans condemning the bias of French courts and chanted, “28 years of jail, 28 years of resistance,” in an attempt to lift his spirits.
As for the hearing held almost 24 hours earlier, Vergès explained that it was postponed for one month and will be held on November 21.
Despite a change in the tone of French authorities in relation to Abdallah’s case, the lawyer said he was not optimistic.
“The public prosecutor would not give up on the logic of extortion and kept demanding an apology from Abdallah and an expression of remorse for his acts,” Vergès added.
He explained that “the condition of expression of remorse only applies to crimes against the public interest. But Georges Ibrahim Abdallah is a prisoner of conscience. He was arrested because he was a communist and an international revolutionary struggling for the Palestinian cause.”
“Demanding that he repudiates his revolutionary convictions is a form of extortion and excess from the French judiciary,” he continued.
“Abdallah categorically refuses to kneel in front of his jailers. Although we know very well that his refusal to yield is the only reason why he remains in prison,” the lawyer told the protesters.
Abdallah was arrested on 24 October 1984 and was given a life sentence in a controversial hearing, which was considered a stain on the French legal system.
The trial suffered from numerous flaws, beginning with using some of Abdallah’s lawyers to spy on him. Evidence against him was also fabricated retroactively by French, US and Israeli intelligence.
“We acted like bullies in the Abdallah case. It is time put an end to the great injustice we put him through,” These facts were confirmed by the former chief of French intelligence, Ives Bonnet, late last year. “We acted like bullies in the Abdallah case. It is time put an end to the great injustice we put him through,” he said, describing the actions of French authorities.
France has kept Abdallah in custody for 28 years despite the fact that prisoners are legally allowed to ask for release on bail after spending 15 years in prison. French law also limits the maximum sentence of any prisoner to 18 years.
Abdallah first applied to be released on bail in 1999, but the court rejected his plea. Other rejections followed, despite the decision to release him by the regional court of parole on 24 October 2003, after spending the maximum term of 18 years.
The French Ministry of Justice, under pressure from the US, has been the main obstacle. US president Barack Obama, for example, recently vetoed Abdallah’s release.
Obama informed French authorities last April that his administration categorically rejects letting Abdallah out of prison.
The US veto followed French promises made to Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati during his visit to Paris last February that they will take a more lenient approach toward the case.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/13118
Georges Abdallah is Free
http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/5cols/leading_images/15795634992739105.jpg
When Georges returns to his village, sheep will be slaughtered and the church bells will ring. (Photo: Marwan Tahtah)
By: Bassam Alkantar
Published Friday, January 11, 2013
Next Monday, 14 January 2013, at dawn at the latest, the gates of Lannemezan Prison in southwest France will be opened for the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. It will mark day 10,309 of his imprisonment and he will finally be set free........
The sun of Kobayat, his hometown in North Lebanon, will be able to caress the face of the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), who was subjected to an unfair series of trials.
On Thursday, there were many reasons why Abdallah’s family was still concerned about his release, but the eyes of his eldest brother Joseph had a lot to say. The volatile revolutionary intellectual from Akkar had been looking for indicators about the French judiciary’s performance, ever since the court of conditional release accepted his brother’s eighth appeal – and decided to expel him from France – on 21 November 2012.
The most prominent sign was the speed with which the ruling judge agreed to set a date for the appeal of his latest decision. The appeal was made by the French justice ministry, which objected to Abdallah’s release under the flagrant directions of the US.
This was in addition to setting yesterday, 10 January 2013, as the date for announcing the final decision, four days prior to the date set by the courts for the foreign ministry to prepare for his expulsion from French territories.
Joseph, a sociology professor, called those who carried the banner of his brother’s release “brigands.” They are outcasts from their sects and parties who were the only ones to stand up to France while everyone else scrambled to attend the receptions at the French Ambassador’s residence on Bastille Day.
French authorities have always believed Georges’ brothers to be part of the “armed revolutionary groups in Lebanon.” They accused the Abdallah family of being behind the operation on Rennes street in Paris on 17 July 1986 when an Israeli diplomat and US military attaché were assassinated.
The accusation was a blatant lie, especially after the counter-terrorism investigations office at the Public Prosecution in Paris found that neither Abdallah nor his family members were implicated in the attack.
Today, the family has many concerns about the future. Georges Abdallah is under threat of being assassinated in his French cell.In his memoirs published in 2003, Avant de Tout Oublier, former counter-terrorism judge Alain Marsaud wrote: “Abdallah was originally indicted for something he did not do. After a short period, we got a hold of the evidence which put us on the right track and allowed us to identify those responsible for the 1986 attacks.”
“Blaming Fouad Saleh for the 1986 attacks led to an immediate lifting of pressure, and returned the situation of Georges Abdallah to its right position,” he wrote. “A few hours after the Rennes street attack, our investigations had led us to the Abdallah brothers and several witnesses who identified Abdallah’s brothers. But this confusion was immediately clarified: one of the bombers, called Habib Haidar, who was directly implicated in the Rennes street attack, had an uncanny resemblance to Emile Abdallah.”
On the heels of allegations that the Abdallah family was behind the attack and the announcement of a financial reward for information about their whereabouts, the family held a press conference in Kobayat.
According to Joseph, this put the French intelligence services in an awkward position. For the previous several hours, they had been promoting silly police tales about the family arriving in Paris, carrying out the operation, and then fleeing.
At the conference, the Abdallahs demanded that the financial reward be paid to the families of the victims of the attacks that Georges Abdallah was accused of being behind.
However, the family, which was involved in the resistance against the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, does not deny that they did kidnap two Frenchmen in the mid 1980s to exchange them for Georges. But Lebanese and Syrian pressure prompted them to release the hostages.
Today, the family has many concerns about the future. Georges Abdallah is under threat of being assassinated in his French cell. He also needs to be provided with protection in his home country, which is wide open to all the planet’s intelligence services.
The assassination threats are not merely a theory. When William Casey was head of the CIA, he went to France to pressure the French government through its then-security minister Robert Pandraud.
In the 1991 book Les Masques du Terrorisme, Patrice de Méritens and Charles Villeneuve described a meeting over lunch between Casey and Pandraud: “William threatens Robert with a fork. The message is clear: if Abdallah does not receive a life sentence, the US will consider that France did not respect the basic rule of justice and failed to honor its commitments thereof, which will lead to a diplomatic boycott.
“A few seconds later came the typical reply: I have something better to propose to you, Pandraud coldly explained. Abdallah gets released. Then we send him to the Middle East and provide you with all the information about him.
“You, the US, this great country with all its networks in the region, will not find it difficult to eliminate him. And the matter will be put to rest forever.”
When Georges returns to his village, sheep will be slaughtered and the church bells will ring. There, he will be able to decide calmly how he will spend his days, which are bound to begin frantically and slowly quiet down. But he will not be too excited about going back to his job as a public school teacher and striking for a salary raise.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/georges-abdallah-free
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/georges-abdallah-hero-returns
Georges Abdallah: Justice Delayed, Again
This is the winding road that the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions has had to take in the French justice system. (Photo: Haytham al-Moussawi)
By: Bassam Alkantar
Published Tuesday, January 15, 2013
“We don’t think he [Georges Abdallah] should be released, and we are continuing our consultations with the French government about it...We have serious concerns that he could return to the battlefield.” This according to a statement from Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the US Department of State, on Friday, 11 January 2013.
This was more than an enough of a hint for the socialist government in Paris to block the decision to release Abdallah, who, from today, 15 January 2013, is essentially a hostage at the Lannemezan Prison.
Yesterday, Abdallah was supposed to appear one last time before the French judge, to be read the terms of his conditional release, which requires him to be deported from France. But French Minister of Interior Manuel Valls refused to sign Abdallah’s deportation order.
One judicial source said that the Sentence Enforcement Chamber of Paris (TAP), which held a hearing on Monday to evaluate the 8th request for parole submitted by Abdallah, “has not yet made a decision pending the deportation order.”
On 21 November 2012, the TAP had approved Abdallah’s request for parole on the condition that he be expelled from France. On 10 January 2013, the Court of Appeals in Paris upheld the TAP’s ruling, and rejected the appeal submitted by the French Public Prosecution, settling the controversy regarding its final and unequivocal decision to release Abdallah.
The sudden French move triggered many questions. For instance, is it possible for the French interior minister to completely block the procedures for the Lebanese prisoner’s conditional release? And, will the French prosecution be able to appeal the parole ruling again, having lost the appeal battle?
A French legal source familiar with the case of Abdallah in Paris told Al-Akhbar that political considerations had trumped legal ones after the interior minister’s move. Usually, he affirmed, the authorities may refrain from deporting a foreign national if it suspects that the country of destination, whether it is the foreigner’s home country or a third country, may mistreat or torture him.
In this event, the authorities often respect the wishes of the foreigner to be deported, to remain under house arrest or in refugee facilities, after serving his or her sentence.
The source added, “In Georges Abdallah’s case, the opposite is true. The Lebanese government has expressed on several occasions its willingness to receive him.”
Concerning whether the prosecution can appeal the parole ruling again, the judicial source said that this was unlikely, but stressed that the interior minister’s insistence on not signing the deportation order practically meant that Abdallah’s release has been obstructed.
This is not the first time that legal proceedings have clashed with political calculations, which makes Abdallah’s case the “scandal of the age,” in the words of Yves Bonnet, the former head of French intelligence services (DST). Since 1999, Abdallah has met all the conditions that make him eligible for parole, something that prompted the French judicial authorities to revisit his case several times over the past years.
A French legal source familiar with the case of Abdallah in Paris told Al-Akhbar that political considerations had trumped legal ones after the interior minister’s move.As it turns out, there are five parole requirements stipulated in the French Penal Code. The first condition is good conduct in prison, which Abdallah has met according to the testimony of the French court itself.
Second, there has to be someone providing him with assistance in case he is released, a requirement that is met as per the documents that have been provided by Abdallah’s family, at the request of the French authorities, since 2003.
Third, the parolee must be able to pursue a vocation, a condition already satisfied by Abdallah, who is part of the Lebanese Ministry of Education’s teaching cadre.
Fourth, the parolee must be in good mental health, which, according to the reports of Abdallah’s psychiatrist, has been fulfilled.
Finally, the parolee must not pose a threat to French society, a requirement that the judiciary has undertaken to fulfill by ensuring that Abdallah is deported by the French interior ministry to Lebanon, or any third country that agrees to host him.
It was this requirement that the French interior minister exploited on Monday, in reverse fashion, to block the Lebanese prisoner’s conditional release.
A History of Abdallah’s French Court Rulings
On 19 November 2003, the parole court in the French district of Pau agreed to release the Lebanese national. The move angered the French Public Prosecution, which rushed to appeal the decision at the request of the justice minister. It succeeded in having the ruling suspended by the court in Pau.
On 16 January 2004, the National Parole Court reexamined the case. However, the court came under pressure from the French justice minister, who in turn was under US-Israeli pressure. Abdallah was subsequently denied parole.
On 31 January 2006, the court refused to release Abdallah after prosecutors argued that France’s image would be undermined with the US and its allies should it release him.
The prosecutors further claimed that Abdallah’s deportation would not guarantee that he wouldn’t return to the same types of acts he carried out in the past and that the psychiatrist’s report was insufficient in this regard.
While he may be in good mental health, they argued, what guarantee was there that he would not return to “terrorism”? (As though Abdallah is a common criminal or a drug addict who is being treated to quit his habit.)
The prosecution gave another reason for opposing Abdallah’s release, namely that he had not paid compensations to the victims, estimated by the court to stand at 53,357 euros, bearing in mind that his family has pledged to pay all such compensations.
On 6 February 2007, Abdallah requested parole for the 7th time only to be rejected once again. Abdallah appealed the ruling, but a decision was postponed until April 2008. The surprise was that the judges, instead of pronouncing the appeal verdict, decided to refer Abdallah’s case from the parole court to a special committee.
On 17 June 2008, Abdallah’s case was referred to a “special committee” in accordance with the provisions of Dati’s Law. Abdallah was formally notified of this, and the committee was set to issue its ruling in September 2008. The ruling was postponed yet again to 9 January 2009 when the court rejected the parole request.
This is the winding road that the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions has had to take in the French justice system. Yet Monday’s court session was one of its most sinister junctures.
So will Jacques Vergès, Abdallah’s lawyer, play the ace up his sleeve and demand a retrial? He most definitely will if Abdallah is not released come January 28.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/georges-abdallah-justice-delayed-again
Published Thursday, January 10, 2013
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a pro-Palestinian Lebanese leftist who has spent 28 years in French prison, will be released and expelled from France, French media reported.
Thursday’s court decision upheld a December ruling, which had been appealed by the general prosecutor. As part of his conditional release, Abdallah is required to leave France before January 14.
Abdallah was arrested in 1984 over the murders of Charles Robert Ray, an American military attache, and Yacov Barsimentov, an Israeli embassy advisor, in Paris in 1982. He was condemned to life in prison in 1987 for complicity in the assassinations.
Over the years, Abdallah became a controversial symbol of 1980s terrorism for some, and of miscarriages of justice for others. Since 1999, Abdallah has applied for parole eight times.
(Al-Akhbar)
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/lebanese-leftist-georges-abdallah-jailed-28-years-be-freed
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Past articles
Georges Abdallah: Exposing the Farce of French Justice
http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/5cols/leading_images/Abdallah_Protest_pic_1.jpg
Protesters gather in solidarity with Georges Abdallah in Beirut. Abdallah originally should have been released from prison after 18 months. But his case soon took a very different turn, leading to his conviction and life imprisonment. (Photo: Marwan Tahtah)
By: Othman Tazghart
Published Wednesday, January 18, 2012
It is an open secret that radical rebel Georges Abdallah, largely ignored by western media, was illegally sentenced to life in prison close to three decades ago. But French authorities continue to insist on keeping him behind bars, even after he has completed his prison term. .........
Paris – French authorities are insisting on keeping an ex-fighter in the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF) in prison, despite the fact that 28 years have passed since he was first detained. This is a major breach of French legal procedures and the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that prisoners serving a life sentence must be released after serving a maximum of 18 years.
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who began his struggle as a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), before joining the LARF, was arrested in Lyon on October 1984. At the time, the LARF was accused of a number of high profile commando operations, the most prominent of which were the assassination of the American military attache in Paris, Charles Robert Ray (18 January 1982) and the Israeli diplomat, Ya’acov Bar-Simantov (3 April 1982).
■ Georges Abdallah: Not All Lebanese Citizen Are Equal by Nader Fawz
Initially, French authorities could not find enough evidence to charge Abdallah in connection with those cases. Apart from some leaflets showing he belonged to the LARF and a fake Algerian passport in his possession, the authorities were hard pressed to make a case against him. Therefore, when he came before the court for the first time in July 1986, he was indicted on only one charge, the use of a fake travel document.
In his memoirs, titled The Elysee Years, and published in 1988, Jacques Attali, the adviser to President Francois Mitterand, wrote on 6 March 1985: “We have no proof against Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. Therefore, the only thing we can charge him with is possession of a fake passport.”
Abdallah originally should have been released from prison after 18 months. But his case soon took a very different turn, leading to his conviction and life imprisonment.
Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, who was a member of Abdallah’s defense team (then headed by the notorious lawyer Jacques Verges), recalls the details of the “judicial conspiracy” against the Lebanese revolutionary, saying: “Abdallah was suddenly recalled to the court on 28 February 1987. We were surprised that he was facing different charges and new evidence which was not included in his file during the first trial. The prosecution claimed that weapons had been found in secret hideaways and flats belonging to Abdallah. This was taken as proof of his participation in the commando operations carried out by the LARF in France in 1982.”
Coutant-Peyre adds: “The court did not hesitate in sentencing our client to life imprisonment, despite the protests of the defense team that the evidence against him was not included in the original trial and was fabricated later to convict him retroactively. This was a major breach of legal procedure.” It was clear that Abdallah had become the victim of an intelligence conspiracy.
However, the details of the conspiracy plotted by the French DST (internal intelligence) were not revealed until the 10th anniversary of Abdallah’s conviction. In his memoirs, titled The Fight Against Espionage: Memoirs of the Director of DST, the former director of French intelligence, Yves Bonnet, also revealed some of the threads of the conspiracy.
“We were able to gather enough information against Abdallah after the head of the anti-terrorist network, Jean Francois Clair, succeeded in recruiting an informant who was very close to the LARF,” Bonnet wrote. He only referred to the informant at the time as “Jean Paul M.” and indicated that he was a lawyer.
In July 2001, when Abdallah had already been in prison for 17 years, the lawyer Jean Paul Mazurier, a member of Abdallah’s defense team, threw a bombshell that shook the French judiciary system. In a long interview with Liberation, he confessed to being the informant alluded to by Yves Bonnet. The lawyer revealed in detail how French intelligence had recruited him to spy on his client (which in itself is enough evidence to repeal Abdallah’s sentence).
Mazurier added that the DST told him to make his client think that he shared his belief in revolutionary ideas and the struggle for the Palestinian cause. Abdallah began to trust him and brought him to meet his friends in the LARF in Lebanon. This made it easier for French intelligence to penetrate their group and gather evidence to convict Abdallah.
As a result of the scandal ignited by the confessions of the lawyer-informant, everyone expected Abdallah’s defense team to raise a challenge to the court to overturn the conviction against its client. French law prohibits the use of lawyers, doctors, or journalists to spy on the accused and to gather evidence against them.
However, the defense team did no such thing. They decided to wait until 2002 to present a request to release Abdallah because his sentence had expired. Despite repeated rejections of these requests over a ten year period, the defense team has refrained from putting in a request to overturn the conviction on the basis of the espionage incident. Everyone Al-Akhbar spoke to on the defense team refused to discuss the reasons behind this. One of them said: “That question should be put to Abdallah’s comrades in the LARF.”
As for the former director of DST, Yves Bonnet, he admits now that what happened was “an illegal intelligence conspiracy.”
“We really did behave like criminals in this case,” he said, adding, “I have to add my voice today to those who are calling for Abdallah’s release. It is time to put an end to the gross injustice we committed against him.”
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/3479
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Paris Continues to Extort Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
By: Othman Tazghart
Published Thursday, October 25, 2012
Wednesday afternoon, a large crowd gathered outside Lannemezan prison in the southwest of France. They were commemorating the 28th anniversary of the arrest of the longest held Arab prisoner of conscience in France, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
One day earlier, Abdallah’s lawyer, Jacques Vergès, had stood facing the court, for the eighth time in nine years, to request the enactment of the decision of the regional court of parole authorizing his release in October 2003.
During that time, the French government managed to block the decision to free Abdallah using several bureaucratic pretexts. .....
The protest outside his prison saw Vergès leading around 200 people, mainly consisting of human rights and leftist activists, in addition to members of the International Solidarity Committee for Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
“The public prosecutor would not give up on the logic of extortion and kept demanding an apology from Abdallah”The cheers and chants from his supporters sounded loud enough to reach him inside his cell. They called for his release and supported his perseverance in the face of the extortion practiced by the French courts.
French authorities are demanding that Abdallah apologize, express regret, and repudiate his revolutionary ideas and actions, in order to implement his legal parole. He was accused of participating in commando operations carried out by the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions, though the court had no concrete evidence against him.
The demonstrators repeated slogans condemning the bias of French courts and chanted, “28 years of jail, 28 years of resistance,” in an attempt to lift his spirits.
As for the hearing held almost 24 hours earlier, Vergès explained that it was postponed for one month and will be held on November 21.
Despite a change in the tone of French authorities in relation to Abdallah’s case, the lawyer said he was not optimistic.
“The public prosecutor would not give up on the logic of extortion and kept demanding an apology from Abdallah and an expression of remorse for his acts,” Vergès added.
He explained that “the condition of expression of remorse only applies to crimes against the public interest. But Georges Ibrahim Abdallah is a prisoner of conscience. He was arrested because he was a communist and an international revolutionary struggling for the Palestinian cause.”
“Demanding that he repudiates his revolutionary convictions is a form of extortion and excess from the French judiciary,” he continued.
“Abdallah categorically refuses to kneel in front of his jailers. Although we know very well that his refusal to yield is the only reason why he remains in prison,” the lawyer told the protesters.
Abdallah was arrested on 24 October 1984 and was given a life sentence in a controversial hearing, which was considered a stain on the French legal system.
The trial suffered from numerous flaws, beginning with using some of Abdallah’s lawyers to spy on him. Evidence against him was also fabricated retroactively by French, US and Israeli intelligence.
“We acted like bullies in the Abdallah case. It is time put an end to the great injustice we put him through,” These facts were confirmed by the former chief of French intelligence, Ives Bonnet, late last year. “We acted like bullies in the Abdallah case. It is time put an end to the great injustice we put him through,” he said, describing the actions of French authorities.
France has kept Abdallah in custody for 28 years despite the fact that prisoners are legally allowed to ask for release on bail after spending 15 years in prison. French law also limits the maximum sentence of any prisoner to 18 years.
Abdallah first applied to be released on bail in 1999, but the court rejected his plea. Other rejections followed, despite the decision to release him by the regional court of parole on 24 October 2003, after spending the maximum term of 18 years.
The French Ministry of Justice, under pressure from the US, has been the main obstacle. US president Barack Obama, for example, recently vetoed Abdallah’s release.
Obama informed French authorities last April that his administration categorically rejects letting Abdallah out of prison.
The US veto followed French promises made to Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati during his visit to Paris last February that they will take a more lenient approach toward the case.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/13118
Georges Abdallah is Free
http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/5cols/leading_images/15795634992739105.jpg
When Georges returns to his village, sheep will be slaughtered and the church bells will ring. (Photo: Marwan Tahtah)
By: Bassam Alkantar
Published Friday, January 11, 2013
Next Monday, 14 January 2013, at dawn at the latest, the gates of Lannemezan Prison in southwest France will be opened for the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. It will mark day 10,309 of his imprisonment and he will finally be set free........
The sun of Kobayat, his hometown in North Lebanon, will be able to caress the face of the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), who was subjected to an unfair series of trials.
On Thursday, there were many reasons why Abdallah’s family was still concerned about his release, but the eyes of his eldest brother Joseph had a lot to say. The volatile revolutionary intellectual from Akkar had been looking for indicators about the French judiciary’s performance, ever since the court of conditional release accepted his brother’s eighth appeal – and decided to expel him from France – on 21 November 2012.
The most prominent sign was the speed with which the ruling judge agreed to set a date for the appeal of his latest decision. The appeal was made by the French justice ministry, which objected to Abdallah’s release under the flagrant directions of the US.
This was in addition to setting yesterday, 10 January 2013, as the date for announcing the final decision, four days prior to the date set by the courts for the foreign ministry to prepare for his expulsion from French territories.
Joseph, a sociology professor, called those who carried the banner of his brother’s release “brigands.” They are outcasts from their sects and parties who were the only ones to stand up to France while everyone else scrambled to attend the receptions at the French Ambassador’s residence on Bastille Day.
French authorities have always believed Georges’ brothers to be part of the “armed revolutionary groups in Lebanon.” They accused the Abdallah family of being behind the operation on Rennes street in Paris on 17 July 1986 when an Israeli diplomat and US military attaché were assassinated.
The accusation was a blatant lie, especially after the counter-terrorism investigations office at the Public Prosecution in Paris found that neither Abdallah nor his family members were implicated in the attack.
Today, the family has many concerns about the future. Georges Abdallah is under threat of being assassinated in his French cell.In his memoirs published in 2003, Avant de Tout Oublier, former counter-terrorism judge Alain Marsaud wrote: “Abdallah was originally indicted for something he did not do. After a short period, we got a hold of the evidence which put us on the right track and allowed us to identify those responsible for the 1986 attacks.”
“Blaming Fouad Saleh for the 1986 attacks led to an immediate lifting of pressure, and returned the situation of Georges Abdallah to its right position,” he wrote. “A few hours after the Rennes street attack, our investigations had led us to the Abdallah brothers and several witnesses who identified Abdallah’s brothers. But this confusion was immediately clarified: one of the bombers, called Habib Haidar, who was directly implicated in the Rennes street attack, had an uncanny resemblance to Emile Abdallah.”
On the heels of allegations that the Abdallah family was behind the attack and the announcement of a financial reward for information about their whereabouts, the family held a press conference in Kobayat.
According to Joseph, this put the French intelligence services in an awkward position. For the previous several hours, they had been promoting silly police tales about the family arriving in Paris, carrying out the operation, and then fleeing.
At the conference, the Abdallahs demanded that the financial reward be paid to the families of the victims of the attacks that Georges Abdallah was accused of being behind.
However, the family, which was involved in the resistance against the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, does not deny that they did kidnap two Frenchmen in the mid 1980s to exchange them for Georges. But Lebanese and Syrian pressure prompted them to release the hostages.
Today, the family has many concerns about the future. Georges Abdallah is under threat of being assassinated in his French cell. He also needs to be provided with protection in his home country, which is wide open to all the planet’s intelligence services.
The assassination threats are not merely a theory. When William Casey was head of the CIA, he went to France to pressure the French government through its then-security minister Robert Pandraud.
In the 1991 book Les Masques du Terrorisme, Patrice de Méritens and Charles Villeneuve described a meeting over lunch between Casey and Pandraud: “William threatens Robert with a fork. The message is clear: if Abdallah does not receive a life sentence, the US will consider that France did not respect the basic rule of justice and failed to honor its commitments thereof, which will lead to a diplomatic boycott.
“A few seconds later came the typical reply: I have something better to propose to you, Pandraud coldly explained. Abdallah gets released. Then we send him to the Middle East and provide you with all the information about him.
“You, the US, this great country with all its networks in the region, will not find it difficult to eliminate him. And the matter will be put to rest forever.”
When Georges returns to his village, sheep will be slaughtered and the church bells will ring. There, he will be able to decide calmly how he will spend his days, which are bound to begin frantically and slowly quiet down. But he will not be too excited about going back to his job as a public school teacher and striking for a salary raise.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/georges-abdallah-free
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/georges-abdallah-hero-returns
Georges Abdallah: Justice Delayed, Again
This is the winding road that the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions has had to take in the French justice system. (Photo: Haytham al-Moussawi)
By: Bassam Alkantar
Published Tuesday, January 15, 2013
“We don’t think he [Georges Abdallah] should be released, and we are continuing our consultations with the French government about it...We have serious concerns that he could return to the battlefield.” This according to a statement from Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the US Department of State, on Friday, 11 January 2013.
This was more than an enough of a hint for the socialist government in Paris to block the decision to release Abdallah, who, from today, 15 January 2013, is essentially a hostage at the Lannemezan Prison.
Yesterday, Abdallah was supposed to appear one last time before the French judge, to be read the terms of his conditional release, which requires him to be deported from France. But French Minister of Interior Manuel Valls refused to sign Abdallah’s deportation order.
One judicial source said that the Sentence Enforcement Chamber of Paris (TAP), which held a hearing on Monday to evaluate the 8th request for parole submitted by Abdallah, “has not yet made a decision pending the deportation order.”
On 21 November 2012, the TAP had approved Abdallah’s request for parole on the condition that he be expelled from France. On 10 January 2013, the Court of Appeals in Paris upheld the TAP’s ruling, and rejected the appeal submitted by the French Public Prosecution, settling the controversy regarding its final and unequivocal decision to release Abdallah.
The sudden French move triggered many questions. For instance, is it possible for the French interior minister to completely block the procedures for the Lebanese prisoner’s conditional release? And, will the French prosecution be able to appeal the parole ruling again, having lost the appeal battle?
A French legal source familiar with the case of Abdallah in Paris told Al-Akhbar that political considerations had trumped legal ones after the interior minister’s move. Usually, he affirmed, the authorities may refrain from deporting a foreign national if it suspects that the country of destination, whether it is the foreigner’s home country or a third country, may mistreat or torture him.
In this event, the authorities often respect the wishes of the foreigner to be deported, to remain under house arrest or in refugee facilities, after serving his or her sentence.
The source added, “In Georges Abdallah’s case, the opposite is true. The Lebanese government has expressed on several occasions its willingness to receive him.”
Concerning whether the prosecution can appeal the parole ruling again, the judicial source said that this was unlikely, but stressed that the interior minister’s insistence on not signing the deportation order practically meant that Abdallah’s release has been obstructed.
This is not the first time that legal proceedings have clashed with political calculations, which makes Abdallah’s case the “scandal of the age,” in the words of Yves Bonnet, the former head of French intelligence services (DST). Since 1999, Abdallah has met all the conditions that make him eligible for parole, something that prompted the French judicial authorities to revisit his case several times over the past years.
A French legal source familiar with the case of Abdallah in Paris told Al-Akhbar that political considerations had trumped legal ones after the interior minister’s move.As it turns out, there are five parole requirements stipulated in the French Penal Code. The first condition is good conduct in prison, which Abdallah has met according to the testimony of the French court itself.
Second, there has to be someone providing him with assistance in case he is released, a requirement that is met as per the documents that have been provided by Abdallah’s family, at the request of the French authorities, since 2003.
Third, the parolee must be able to pursue a vocation, a condition already satisfied by Abdallah, who is part of the Lebanese Ministry of Education’s teaching cadre.
Fourth, the parolee must be in good mental health, which, according to the reports of Abdallah’s psychiatrist, has been fulfilled.
Finally, the parolee must not pose a threat to French society, a requirement that the judiciary has undertaken to fulfill by ensuring that Abdallah is deported by the French interior ministry to Lebanon, or any third country that agrees to host him.
It was this requirement that the French interior minister exploited on Monday, in reverse fashion, to block the Lebanese prisoner’s conditional release.
A History of Abdallah’s French Court Rulings
On 19 November 2003, the parole court in the French district of Pau agreed to release the Lebanese national. The move angered the French Public Prosecution, which rushed to appeal the decision at the request of the justice minister. It succeeded in having the ruling suspended by the court in Pau.
On 16 January 2004, the National Parole Court reexamined the case. However, the court came under pressure from the French justice minister, who in turn was under US-Israeli pressure. Abdallah was subsequently denied parole.
On 31 January 2006, the court refused to release Abdallah after prosecutors argued that France’s image would be undermined with the US and its allies should it release him.
The prosecutors further claimed that Abdallah’s deportation would not guarantee that he wouldn’t return to the same types of acts he carried out in the past and that the psychiatrist’s report was insufficient in this regard.
While he may be in good mental health, they argued, what guarantee was there that he would not return to “terrorism”? (As though Abdallah is a common criminal or a drug addict who is being treated to quit his habit.)
The prosecution gave another reason for opposing Abdallah’s release, namely that he had not paid compensations to the victims, estimated by the court to stand at 53,357 euros, bearing in mind that his family has pledged to pay all such compensations.
On 6 February 2007, Abdallah requested parole for the 7th time only to be rejected once again. Abdallah appealed the ruling, but a decision was postponed until April 2008. The surprise was that the judges, instead of pronouncing the appeal verdict, decided to refer Abdallah’s case from the parole court to a special committee.
On 17 June 2008, Abdallah’s case was referred to a “special committee” in accordance with the provisions of Dati’s Law. Abdallah was formally notified of this, and the committee was set to issue its ruling in September 2008. The ruling was postponed yet again to 9 January 2009 when the court rejected the parole request.
This is the winding road that the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions has had to take in the French justice system. Yet Monday’s court session was one of its most sinister junctures.
So will Jacques Vergès, Abdallah’s lawyer, play the ace up his sleeve and demand a retrial? He most definitely will if Abdallah is not released come January 28.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/georges-abdallah-justice-delayed-again