A rally in support of political prisoner Georges Abdallah. Photo: Samidoun/file photo.
By Joseph Mikhael – Feb 1, 2025
Many people have taken an interest in the case of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who has been detained in French prisons for nearly forty years. These individuals have expressed solidarity with his just cause, driven by national, ideological, or regional sentiments—and I am one of them. Georges Abdallah is a son of my hometown (in Lebanon,) Al-Qoubaiyat, and I once served as his legal representative in a civil case in Beirut during the 1980s. I also accompanied his late mother on her visit to see him in detention in France, fulfilling her wish to see him before her passing. During that trip, I met his French lawyer at the time, Jacques Vergès, who dedicated great care and attention to this case.
Today, in this brief account, I aim to shed light on the facts, evidence, and documents that reveal the extent of the pressures exerted on French political and judicial authorities to impose the harshest penalties on him and keep him imprisoned in a case that lacks sufficient evidence. This has been openly admitted by officials from both the United States and French governments. Additionally, there were legal loopholes in the criminal trial, which lacked the most basic principles of justice and fairness. The trial was marred by numerous legal irregularities that are uncharacteristic of the French judiciary.
Regarding external pressures, a recent study by a Lebanese activist in international affairs, Sybil Fares, from Harvard University in Boston, USA, has brought to light a document issued by the US State Department in July 1986, addressed to the then French Foreign Minister. Recently declassified, the document contained a clear threat that “serious consequences would follow for bilateral relations if US interests were not taken into account in this case.”
The aforementioned document also included an explicit admission that the evidence in the case was insufficient to convict him. This was confirmed by US National Security Council official John Poindexter in a 1986 document, which stated that “the National Security Council was well aware that Georges Ibrahim Abdallah’s case lacked strength and that Chirac (the former French president) was not taking American pressures into consideration.”
In another document, Robert B. Oakley wrote to Oliver North in September 1986: “It is also important that we continue to pressure the prosecution to pursue a second trial against Abdallah as a means of forcing the French government to bypass the laws and keep him in prison… Our strategy and tactics are working well.” The document further recommended increasing pressure by threatening to kill Georges in his cell. In a frank statement, the former director of the French Internal Intelligence Agency, Yves Bonnet, declared in an interview with France 24 that Abdallah should be released, defended his case before the judiciary, and stated that there was no justification for his imprisonment, adding that the US and Israel continue to exert immense pressure on France.
It is also worth noting that in 2013, the French court approved his release on the condition of his deportation to Lebanon. However, the then French Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, blocked this decision. It was later revealed through emails leaked by WikiLeaks of Hillary Clinton (then US Secretary of State) proving that she had directly intervened, writing in a message to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius: ” Although the French Government has no legal authority to overturn the Court of Appeal’s January 10 decision, we hope French officials might find another basis to challenge the decision’s legality.”
Returning to the proceedings of the criminal trial in French courts, it is evident that in 1984, Abdallah was charged with possession of documents, weapons, and explosives, for which he was sentenced to four years in prison. In 1987, he was accused of complicity in the murders of two individuals in France: the US military attaché Charles Ray and the Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov. Notably, in this latter trial, the prosecutor requested a ten-year prison sentence, but the criminal court sentenced him to life imprisonment—a blatant and radical departure from standard procedures. It is a well-established principle that a criminal court should not impose a harsher penalty than the one requested by the prosecutor, as the prosecutor represents society. This deviation was unusual and clearly the result of the French judiciary succumbing to external pressures.
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Moreover, it is important to highlight the great deception Abdallah faced during that trial. French intelligence agencies manipulated his French lawyer, Jean-Paul Mazurier, to relay intelligence information about his client, as Mazurier himself admitted on French television. In a shocking and uncharacteristic move, French Justice Minister Alain Chalandon rejected a request by French lawyer Jacques Vergès for a retrial, despite the betrayal and deception Abdallah suffered at the hands of his former lawyer, Jean-Paul Mazurier.
In conclusion, it can be said that this case, at the very least, lacks the principles of justice and fairness for which the French judiciary has long been known. Therefore, I present these facts to inform those concerned—His Excellency the President of the Republic, the caretaker Prime Minister, the designated Prime Minister, and the Minister of Justice—and to urge them to act swiftly to rectify this grave injustice against the Lebanese citizen Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. The course of events, as previously outlined, clearly and unequivocally indicates that justice is absent in this case. It is the duty of the Lebanese state, in line with its national and constitutional responsibilities toward its citizens, to act quickly to lift this injustice and ensure his safe return to his homeland.
Translation by Orinoco Tribune
OT/DZ/JRE
