One of France’s longest-held inmates, the anti-Israel Lebanese terrorist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, was released from prison and was due to be deported on Friday, after more than 40 years behind bars for the killings of two diplomats.

At around 3:40 a.m. local time, a convoy of six vehicles left the Lannemezan penitentiary with lights flashing, AFP journalists saw.

A source close to the case confirmed to AFP that 74-year-old Abdallah had left the prison.

Abdallah was captured in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his involvement in the murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris.

The Paris Court of Appeal had ordered his release “effective July 25” on the condition that he leave French territory and never return.

While he had been eligible for release since 1999, his previous requests were denied, with the United States — a civil party to the case — consistently opposing him leaving prison.

Inmates serving life sentences in France are typically freed after fewer than 30 years.

Once out of prison, Abdallah was set to be transported to the Tarbes airport, where a police plane would take him to Roissy for a flight to Beirut, according to a source close to the case.

Abdallah’s lawyer, Jean-Louis Chalanset, visited him for a final time on Thursday. “He seemed very happy about his upcoming release, even though he knows he is returning to the Middle East in an extremely tough context for Lebanese and Palestinian populations,” Chalanset told AFP.

AFP visited Abdallah last week following the court’s release decision, accompanying a lawmaker to the detention center.

Wounded in 1978 during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Abdallah joined the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which carried out a string of plane hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s. It is banned as a terror group by the US and EU.

Then, in the late 1970s, Abdallah, a Christian, founded his terror group, the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF). It made contact with other extreme-left outfits, including Italy’s Red Brigades and the German Red Army Faction (RAF).

The appeals court in February noted that the LARF “had not committed a violent action since 1984” and that Abdallah “today represented a past symbol of the Palestinian struggle.”

The appeals judges also found the length of his detention “disproportionate” to the crimes and given his age.

Abdallah’s family said they plan to meet him at Beirut airport’s “honor lounge” before heading to their hometown of Kobayat in northern Lebanon, where a reception is planned.