Georges Ibrahim Abdallah left prison by car on Friday, July 25, at 3:40 am, and then left France by plane, on Air France flight 564, at 9:30 am that day. He was deported to Lebanon, his home country, after having spent more than four decades in detention, making him one of the longest-held prisoners in both France and Europe.
Abdallah was transferred to Paris in the middle of the night. Journalists from Agence France-Presse (AFP) present at the scene saw a convoy of six police vehicles leave, all with their lights flashing, from the southern Lannemezan penitentiary center where he was being held, along with the local department prefect’s car. He was then flown from an airport in the nearby town of Tarbes to Paris’ Charles-de-Gaulle international airport, from which he took a flight to Beirut later that morning.
“It is both a joy for him, an emotional shock and a political victory after all this time,” said Abdallah’s lawyer, Jean-Louis Chalanset. “He should have been out so long ago.” According to Chalanset, who saw him one last time in prison on Thursday, “he seemed very happy about his imminent release, even though he knows he is arriving in the Middle East amid an extremely difficult context for the Lebanese and Palestinian populations.”
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