Court Rejects French Plea; Terrorist Gets Life Term

A special French court of seven judges, in a surprising rejection of the prosecutor’s plea for a light sentence to avoid renewed terrorism, condemned Georges Ibrahim Abdallah to life imprisonment Saturday for complicity in the murder and attempted murder of two American officials and an Israeli diplomat.

Abdallah, a 35-year-old Lebanese Christian who described himself as “an Arab combatant” at the opening session, refused to attend the rest of the trial.

He was found guilty of charges that he helped organize the slayings in Paris in 1982 of Lt. Col. Charles R. Ray, an American military attache, and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov and of the attempted murder in Strasbourg in 1984 of Robert O. Homme, an American consul.

Abdallah’s lawyer said his client laughed when informed of the verdict.

The sentence, which astounded many spectators in the ornate criminal courtroom of the Palace of Justice, immediately evoked fears of a resumption of the bombings that terrorized Paris last September, killing 11 people and injuring more than 160 others. The release of Abdallah was the main demand of the bombers.

The threat of more bombings, in fact, had been cited by prosecutor Pierre Baechlin in a dramatic plea Friday for a light sentence. Describing himself as speaking “with a heavy heart,” Baechlin warned that France would be held hostage if a severe sentence was imposed on Abdallah.

The verdict and sentence were welcomed by the U.S. government, which was represented in court as an interested party. “What we sought in this trial was justice,” Ambassador Joe M. Rodgers said at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy, “and justice has been rendered.”

Rodgers acknowledged the threat of renewed terrorism. But he said: “We will have to worry about the outcome of this later. And we will have to take the consequences of defending democracy as we have in our world wars and in other wars. We’re at war, and we’re defending democracy.”

In Washington, the State Department issued the following statement: “The U.S. government is pleased. . . . By joining as partie civile in the Ray and Homme cases, the United States sought justice for its official representatives serving in France who were victims of these terrorist actions. We sought as well to underline our commitment to the struggle against international terrorism and to the rule of law which serves civilization as the major bulwark against the ravages of those who violate its most fundamental principles.”

Georges Kiejman, the highly respected French lawyer who represented the American government and victims in the case, told reporters later that the verdict, in the face of real terrorist threats, was “very courageous.”

Kiejman said he was shocked to hear the government prosecutor, in his plea for a light sentence, say that the judicial system had no means of fighting terrorism. “Personally,” Kiejman said, “I think justice is the best means of fighting terrorism.”

Attorney Loses Smile

As soon as Chief Judge Maurice Colomb read the court’s decision, Jacques Verges, the defense attorney, lost the faint, ironic smile with which he had watched proceedings for six days.

He was obviously furious and, as soon as the judges left the courtroom, he shouted to reporters that his client had no intention of appealing. “The French government,” he said, “will put Abdallah in prison for life if that’s what it feels is the national interest.”

Later, Verges, who will defend accused Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie at his trial in Lyon in May, warned that Arab militants would look on the verdict as a declaration of war. “I don’t think they can keep a man like Georges Ibrahim Abdallah for life without consequences,” he said. “France has chosen the road to hostility with the Arab countries.”

The verdict astounded many in the courtroom because it had been widely reported in the press that the French government had reached an agreement with the clan of Abdallah and Syrian intelligence officials to free Abdallah before the end of year in exchange for a guarantee against resumption of the terror in Paris.

Plea for Light Sentence

This report was reinforced when prosecutor Baechlin, presumably speaking on behalf of the government, made his plea for a light sentence. He told French reporters later that he had done so because of information that had reached him in the last 48 hours. He would not say, however, what that information was.

Both President Francois Mitterrand and Premier Jacques Chirac had preached firmness against terrorism during the week. Mitterrand even told reporters that he believed Abdallah deserved a severe punishment.

But these signals were ignored by French newspapers, which predicted that the French courts, as they have often done in the past, would follow the prosecutor’s plea and impose a sentence so light that Abdallah would be eligible for parole before the end of the year. Many courts in French history have been accused of laying aside justice and rendering a verdict that conforms with what the government believes is the national interest. The French call this acting for “reasons of state,” and several newspapers used that expression in their accounts of the trial Saturday morning.

No Extenuating Circumstances

But, after an hour’s deliberation, Judge Colomb led the six other judges into the courtroom and, reading rapidly, said that a majority of the court had found Abdallah guilty of all charges, had found no extenuating circumstances, and therefore sentenced him to life in prison. Unless pardoned by the president, Abdallah must serve at least 15 years before he can be paroled.

“I am proud of the French system of justice,” said a French journalist after the verdict was read, “but I am also worried.”

The most telling evidence against Abdallah was the murder weapon, which was found in his Paris apartment, and a map, with notations in his handwriting, that marked the home of U.S. Consul Homme in Strasbourg.

Abdallah has often been called the head of the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Factions, the organization that claimed responsibility for the shootings and for other terrorist attacks in both France and Italy. But, during the trial, the deputy director of the French equivalent of the FBI told the court that he believed Abdallah was not the head but only “a little chief of a little commando.”

Relatives and Friends

French police have said that the members of the organization are mostly relatives and friends of Abdallah in a small Maronite Christian town in northern Lebanon under Syrian control. The French press has reported that Syrian agents helped the Abdallah clan in its bombings of Paris, but the French government denied that it believes there had been a Syrian hand in the terrorism.

Abdallah was arrested by French police in Lyon in 1984. In retaliation, his associates kidnaped the head of the French cultural center in Tripoli in Lebanon and held him as a hostage for the release of Abdallah. French officials reportedly agreed to an exchange but, within hours of the release of the French hostage, French police found the murder weapon in Abdallah’s apartment. The news of the find was leaked to the press, and the French government decided not to release Abdallah.

After a series of relatively small bombings, the French tried Abdallah last July on charges of associating with criminals and possessing false documents and illegal weapons. He was given a light sentence of four years that would have made him eligible for parole and deportation immediately.

Washington Angered

The light sentence, however, angered the U.S. government, which decided to enter the case and pressure the French for a trial on more serious charges of complicity in murder and attempted murder. The pressing of these charges made it legally impossible for the French government to release Abdallah. His continued detention led to the heavy wave of bombings that terrorized Paris last September.

Pressed about American involvement in the case, Ambassador Rodgers denied any interference by the U.S. government in the French judicial process. “The French government used its own judicial system to bring a criminal to trial,” he said.

Under French law, the victims, as a civil party in a criminal case, are entitled to compensation, and Judge Colomb announced that the court had voted to order Abdallah to pay 150,000 francs ($25,000) to the widow of Lt. Col Ray, 100,000 francs ($17,000) to each of their two children, and a symbolic payment of one franc each to Consul Homme and the U.S. government.