Lebanese sources report that a French court has issued a release order for septuagenarian Georges Abdullah, a Lebanese militant leader who has been imprisoned in France for 41 years.

Jean-Louis Chalanset, Georges Abdullah's defence lawyer, confirmed the news to Al-Mayadeen television network, stating that Abdullah will be released on July 25.

"Georges Abdullah's detention was a political decision, and after 41 years, he will be released and return to Beirut," Chalanset said.

Al-Mayadeen's Paris correspondent reported that the Lebanese Embassy in France will take necessary steps to transfer Abdullah to the airport and prepare for his return to Lebanon.

In November 2024, a French court had ordered the conditional release of Abdullah, now the country's longest-serving foreign prisoner. "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," prosecutors said at the time.

Abdullah, was born in 1951 in the village of Qobayyat in Lebanon's Akkar region. After completing his studies, he began anti-Israeli activities through various branches, with his affiliated movement carrying out five operations in 1981 and 1982.

He received a life sentence in 1987 for his role in the 1982 killings of US military attaché Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yakov Barsimentov in Paris, along with an attempted assassination of Robert Homme, a US consul in Strasbourg.

The Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions claimed responsibility for both murders, stating they were conducted in response to American and Israeli involvement in Lebanon's civil war that began in 1975, as well as Israel's subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.

Abdullah was arrested during a trip to France in 1984 after being pursued by Mossad agents and Lebanese collaborators, detained on charges of carrying a forged identity card, according to Lebanese media.

Although the French judiciary had issued Abdullah's release order with the condition that he leave the country, the French government continued to refrain from implementing the ruling under American pressure.

Sheikh Naim Qassem, Secretary-General of Hezbollah, stressed during a meeting with Abdullah's family members that the fighter's imprisonment remains one of the resistance's cases that Hezbollah continues to prioritise.

"The French government, by not releasing Georges Abdullah, has trampled on the most basic human rights laws. The continued detention of Georges Abdullah is a stain on France's record that can only be erased by his release," Qassem said.

Abdullah, who spent all his youth in prison, is now set to be released at age 74.