BEIRUT: Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem Tuesday condemned France's ongoing imprisonment of leftist militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
“We call on France to release Georges Abdallah as soon as possible, and we consider his continued detention to be a blatant violation of human rights,” Qassem said in a statement released by the Hezbollah media office after meeting with representatives from the International Campaign for the Release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
The remarks were the first by a ranking official in Hezbollah to demand the release of Abdallah, but the party in 2013 released a statement of support.
Abdallah was arrested in Lyon in October 1984 and condemned three years later to life in prison for alleged involvement in the killing of an Israeli diplomat and an American military attache in Paris in 1982.
Abdallah has maintained his innocence.
Abdallah should have been freed in 1999 by virtue of France's penal code, but Paris has rejected nine appeals for his release.
His supporters have accused the United States and Israel of lobbying to keep Abdallah behind bars.
Under the French judicial system, a life sentence means 15 years in prison, after which the prisoner has the right to demand his release.
In 2013, French courts accepted a request to release Abdallah, and within the 24-hour deadline, no appeals were made. His supporters in Lebanon were preparing his reception and the date of his return was set. But then-Interior Minister of France Manuel Valls denied the deportation order.
Hezbollah had maintained a low profile in supporting his release, with party official Ghaleb Abu Zeinab once explaining that the party did not want its support to be negatively exploited.
But on Tuesday Qassem openly denounced French authorities over the delay in releasing Abdallah, accusing the United States of exerting pressure on France to keep him behind bars.
“Is American pressure... more important than France’s dignity?” he asked.
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