The court said Abdallah, who was detained in 1984 and convicted in 1987 over the 1982 murders, would be released on December 6 on condition that he leaves France, French anti-terror prosecutors said in a statement, adding that they would appeal the release order.

"In (a) decision dated today, the court granted Georges Ibrahim Abdallah conditional release from December 6, subject to the condition that he leaves French territory and not appear there again," the prosecutors said.

Abdallah was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his involvement in the 1982 murders of US military attaché Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yakov Barsimentov in Paris, as well as in an assassination attempt on Robert Homme, a US consul in Strasbourg.

The Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions claimed responsibility for the two murders, saying they were carried out in retaliation for US and Israeli involvement in the Lebanese civil war, which erupted in 1975, as well as Israel's subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon, which began in 1982 and lasted until 2000.

During his long incarceration, Abdallah has been supported by a network of human rights groups, anti-imperialist, Marxist, and anti-Zionist activists who have denounced what they consider the judicial mistreatment of “a hostage of the French government”. They compare him to a more celebrated former political prisoner: Nelson Mandela of South Africa.  

‘A legal and a political victory’

The US has consistently opposed Abdallah’s release, but Lebanese authorities have repeatedly said he should be freed from jail.

Abdallah, now 73, has always insisted he is a "fighter" who battled for the rights of Palestinians and not a "criminal". This was his 11th bid for release.

He had been eligible to apply for parole since 1999 but all his previous applications had been turned down, except in 2013 when he was granted release on the condition that he would be expelled from France.

However the then interior minister Manuel Valls refused to go through with the order and Abdallah remained in jail.

The court's decision on Friday is not conditional on the government issuing such an order, Abdallah's lawyer, Jean-Louis Chalanset, told AFP, hailing "a legal and a political victory".

A spotlight on French justice system

Abdallah has never expressed regret for his actions.

Wounded in 1978 during Israel's invasion of Lebanon, he joined the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which carried out a string of plane hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s and is banned as a terror group by the US and EU.

In the late 1970s, Abdallah, a Christian, founded his own militant group the LARF, which had contact with other radical left militant outfits including Italy's Red Brigades and the German Red Army Faction (RAF).

A pro-Syrian and anti-Israeli Marxist group, the LARF claimed four deadly attacks in France in the 1980s. Abdallah was arrested in 1984 after entering a police station in Lyon and claiming Mossad assassins were on his trail.

At his trial over the killing of the diplomats, Abdallah was sentenced to life in prison, a much more severe punishment than the 10 years demanded by prosecutors.

His lawyer Jacques Verges, who defended clients including Venezuelan militant Carlos the Jackal, described the verdict as a "declaration of war".

There remains a broad swell of support for his cause among the far left and communists in France. Last month, 2022 Nobel literature prize winner Annie Ernaux said in a piece in communist daily L'Humanité that his detention "shamed France".