- Asian stocks mostly up after US tech rally
- US panel could not reach consensus on US-Japan steel deal: Nippon
- The real-life violence that inspired South Korea's 'Squid Game'
- Blogs to Bluesky: social media shifts responses after 2004 tsunami
- Tennis power couple de Minaur and Boulter get engaged
- Supermaxi yachts eye record in gruelling Sydney-Hobart race
- Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupts, spewing columns of lava
- El Salvador Congress votes to end ban on metal mining
- Five things to know about Panama Canal, in Trump's sights
- NBA fines Minnesota guard Edwards $75,000 for outburst
- Haitians massacred for practicing voodoo were abducted, hacked to death: UN
- Inter beat Como to keep in touch with leaders Atalanta
- Mixed day for global stocks as market hopes for 'Santa Claus rally'
- Man Utd boss Amorim questions 'choices' of Rashford's entourage
- Trump's TikTok love raises stakes in battle over app's fate
- Is he serious? Trump stirs unease with Panama, Greenland ploys
- England captain Stokes to miss three months with torn hamstring
- Support grows for Blake Lively over smear campaign claim
- Canada records 50,000 opioid overdose deaths since 2016
- Jordanian, Qatari envoys hold talks with Syria's new leader
- France's second woman premier makes surprise frontline return
- France's Macron announces fourth government of the year
- Netanyahu tells Israel parliament 'some progress' on Gaza hostage deal
- Guatemalan authorities recover minors taken by sect members
- Germany's far-right AfD holds march after Christmas market attack
- European, US markets wobble awaiting Santa rally
- Serie A basement club Monza fire coach Nesta
- Mozambique top court confirms ruling party disputed win
- Biden commutes almost all federal death sentences
- Syrian medics say were coerced into false chemical attack testimony
- NASA solar probe to make its closest ever pass of Sun
- France's new government to be announced Monday evening: Elysee
- London toy 'shop' window where nothing is for sale
- Volkswagen boss hails cost-cutting deal but shares fall
- Accused killer of US insurance CEO pleads not guilty to 'terrorist' murder
- Global stock markets mostly higher
- Not for sale. Greenland shrugs off Trump's new push
- Sweden says China blocked prosecutors' probe of ship linked to cut cables
- Acid complicates search after deadly Brazil bridge collapse
- Norwegian Haugan dazzles in men's World Cup slalom win
- Arsenal's Saka out for 'many weeks' with hamstring injury
- Mali singer Traore child custody case postponed
- France mourns Mayotte victims amid uncertainy over government
- UK economy stagnant in third quarter in fresh setback
- Sweden says China denied request for prosecutors to probe ship linked to cut undersea cables
- African players in Europe: Salah leads Golden Boot race after brace
- Global stock markets edge higher as US inflation eases rate fears
- German far-right AfD to march in city hit by Christmas market attack
- Ireland centre Henshaw signs IRFU contract extension
- Bangladesh launches $5bn graft probe into Hasina's family
French court orders release of Lebanese militant held since 1984
A French court on Friday ordered the release of pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, jailed for 40 years for the killing of two foreign diplomats, prosecutors said.
The court said Abdallah, first detained in 1984 and convicted in 1987 over the 1982 murders, would be released on December 6 provided he leaves France, French anti-terror prosecutors said in a statement to AFP, adding that they would appeal.
"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, a former guerrilla in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov.
Washington has consistently opposed his 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 he was 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".
- Veteran inmate -
One of France's longest serving inmates, Abdallah has never expressed regret for his actions.
Wounded in 1978 during Israel's invasion of Lebanon, he joined the Marxist-Leninist 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.
Abdallah, a Christian, then in the late 1970s founded his own militant group the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF) which had contact with other extreme-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 deady 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'Humanite that his detention "shamed France".
J.Horn--BTB