A French court on Friday granted the conditional release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a Lebanese terrorist imprisoned since 1984 for his role in the murders of Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov and U.S. military attaché Col. Charles Ray in Paris.

Abdallah, now 73, was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The decision to release him, set for December 6, is contingent upon his permanent departure from French territory. France’s antiterrorism prosecutor plans to appeal the ruling, a spokesperson confirmed to AFP.

“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 in a statement quoted by AFP.

This is not the first time Abdallah’s release has been ordered. In 2013, a parole committee approved his release, but it was blocked when France’s then-interior minister declined to authorize his deportation. The latest ruling by the tribunal d’application des peines, which oversees prisoner sentences, bypasses the need for government approval, potentially removing the prior barrier to his release.

Abdallah was linked to the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine before founding the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), a splinter group responsible for several terrorist attacks. In March 1982, an accomplice of Abdallah shot Barsimantov, the second secretary of Israel’s embassy in France, three times in the head in front of his wife and 8-year-old daughter. Although the shooter was never apprehended, the murder was traced back to Abdallah.

Abdallah maintains that his actions were part of a political struggle for Palestinian rights, refusing to express remorse.

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