LEBANESE communists condemned a French court for refusing to free political prisoner George Abdallah today, accusing it of bending to US imperialism and Israeli zionism.

“Once again, the French administration demonstrates its arbitrariness in continuing its detention of the militant George Ibrahim Abdullah and its absolute bias toward the US administration and zionist aggression,” the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) said after Thursday’s ruling.

It compared the continued imprisonment of Mr Abdallah to “the administrative detention by the zionist occupation authorities against the Palestinian people” and said that it reflected “an ongoing crime committed by the French authorities.”