Justice With Courage

A panel of independent-minded jurists in Paris has placed the imperatives of justice above the expedients of politics, and the world is better off because of their courage. Disregarding an extraordinary and craven plea for leniency by the prosecution, a special seven-judge court has found Lebanese terrorist leader Georges Ibrahim Abdallah guilty of complicity in two murders and sentenced him to life in prison. With this punishment, the severest that French law allows, the values of civilized society that terrorists seek to corrupt and destroy have been strongly reaffirmed.

The French government has never been comfortable with the Abdallah case. After his arrest on relatively minor charges in 1984, it cut a deal to let him go free in exchange for a French hostage in Lebanon. Before that corrupt bargain could be consummated, however, evidence was found linking Abdallah to the murders of an American military attache and an Israeli diplomat in Paris, and to the attempted murder of another American official. The evidence, including a gun used to commit the two killings that was found in Abdallah’s possession, was compelling. Under strong U.S. pressure, the prosecution of Abdallah was pressed.

The prosecutor in the case, representing the French government, had pleaded for no more than a 10-year sentence for the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction. Taking into account time already spent in captivity, that would have meant that Abdallah could be released almost immediately. The court heard explicit warnings from the prosecutor and Abdallah’s attorney that harsher punishment would bring new terrorist outrages to France. To their credit, the jurists ignored these threats and imposed a sentence justified by the clear evidence of Abdallah’s guilt. In so doing they provided a firm reproach to all those, terrorists and timid politicians alike, who would try to subvert the integrity of the judicial process.