The longest-serving prisoner in Europe returns to Lebanon
Georges Abdallah, a long-time pro-Palestinian activist, returns to Lebanon after 40 years imprisoned in France.
BeirutThe face of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a 74-year-old man with a completely gray beard and hair, a restrained gaze, and a slow gait, reflects the weight of four decades of captivity. He was a prisoner of war, ...
"My father told me about him when I was a kid. He told me he'd been buried alive, and if he never came out... That's why I came," explains Hadi, a 22-year-old student.
It no longer poses a danger
The French court, when granting his release, argued that the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Factions (LRAF), the group founded by Abdallah, had been disbanded for decades. The court described him as a "symbol of the Palestinian struggle" and noted that, although he expressed no remorse or compassion for the victims—whom he considers enemies—he no longer poses a risk to public order.
At the time of the events, during the Lebanese Civil War and following the Israeli invasion of the south in 1978, the LAF attacked Israeli and American interests in Europe. Before his arrest in 1984, the group carried out five attacks in France. Abdallah was identified by fingerprints found in a cache of explosives and weapons, including the pistol used in the murders. His trial in 1987 made him public enemy number one. He was wrongly linked to attacks in Paris in 1985 and 1986, which left 13 dead, although he always denied involvement. Nevertheless, he defended those acts as part of the resistance against the Israeli occupation and US imperialism.
A controversial figure
His figure continues to divide opinions. For his followers, he is a symbol of anti-colonial resistance. For others, a ghost of a political violence that must never return. His return coincides with a tense climate, with southern Lebanon under almost daily bombardment despite the November 2024 ceasefire, and the war in Gaza that continues to inflame the region.
Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has stated that his return "closes a page of personal suffering and opens another of national reconciliation." But not everyone shares that view. The wounds of the civil war remain open, and for some, more than reconciliation, Abdallah's return reopens a story that has never been closed.