Skip to main content

Israel frees French-Palestinian after 13 months without trial

Israel

JERUSALEM: Israel on Sunday released a French-Palestinian lawyer held without charge for the past 13 months over unspecified allegations, his lawyer said.

Salah Hamouri, 33, was freed at Jerusalem police headquarters after being brought from his cell in a prison in southern Israel’s Negev desert.

Attorney Mahmud Hassan told AFP that Hamouri was forbidden to take part in demonstrations, protests or celebrations of his release for a period of 30 days and required to post a bond of 3,000 shekels ($825, 710 euros).

He was arrested at his home in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on August 23, 2017 and subsequently interned under what Israel calls administrative detention, which allows detention without trial for renewable six-month periods.

Read More: Palestinians ask UN court to revoke US Jerusalem embassy move

Neither suspects nor their lawyers are informed of the reasons for arrests and Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency had no immediate comment when asked by AFP for the reasons behind Hamouri’s detention.

“Freedom is an indescribable feeling,” Hamouri told AFP after his release, while saying he felt France had not done enough to push for it.

“The detention system in Israeli prisons is often hard. The Israelis try everything to imprison our will, to isolate us from our society and our family.”

He said he had not been in contact with his wife or son during his detention, and that Israel had refused a visa request for his wife who lives in France.

Israeli authorities have in the past accused Hamouri of belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which Israel, the United States and the European Union list as a terrorist group.

Hamouri has denied it, according to his wife, contacted in France.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian discussed his case several times with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the French foreign ministry.

Israel says administrative detention is intended to allow authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, with the aim of preventing attacks or security offences in the meantime.

But the system has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups and members of the international community who say Israel abuses the measure.

Hamouri was born in east Jerusalem to a French mother and a Palestinian father.

Palestinian prisoner support NGO Addameer, which employed him as a field researcher, said he was first arrested and placed under administrative detention in 2001, aged 16.

He was interned without trial for another five-month stretch in 2004, it said, then arrested again in 2005.

Following that arrest, he was tried and convicted by an Israeli court on charges of plotting to assassinate Ovadia Yossef, a prominent Israeli rabbi and spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas political party.

Hamouri was released in December 2011 as part of a swap of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, a soldier held captive in Gaza for more than five years.

He has always maintained his innocence.

Addameer says more than 5,500 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli jails, including approximately 450 in administrative detention.

The post Israel frees French-Palestinian after 13 months without trial appeared first on ARYNEWS.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountability court hears assets case against Ishaq Dar

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in Islamabad on Wednesday resumed the hearing of a reference filed against former finance minister Ishaq Dar by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for allegedly accumulating assets beyond his known sources of income.  Judge Muhammad Bashir is recording the statement of a prosecution witness, Ishtiaq Ahmed. At the previous hearing, the accountability judge had reserved his verdict on an application filed by two co-accused seeking acquittal in the case. Naeem Mehmood and Mansoor Rizvi, who are directors of Dar’s companies, had filed the application requesting the judge to exonerate them from all charges for want of evidence. Qazi Misbah, the counsel for the two co-accused, contended the prosecution has failed to provide compelling evidence to prove the allegations leveled against his clients. The third co-accused President National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), Saeed Ahmed, had already filed an application before the court for his acquittal wh...
Post a Comment
Read more

SFA raids several restaurants in Karachi, imposes fine

KARACHI: The Sindh Food Authority (SFA) on Friday raided several restaurants in city’s North Nazimabad area over unhygienic conditions, ARY News reported. According to the SFA, one of the restaurants was found utilizing the used oil multiple times. The items were also not properly frozen while crockery for serving the food was also not clean. The team imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the restaurant. The SFA team found hygiene standards were sheerly compromised in food making to the core. The food inspectors said they had previously served notices to the food outlets, but the restaurant owners apparently turned a blind eye to it. Raids were also conducted in district Malir and Gulshan-e-Hadeed. Sanitary conditions and lack of fumigation facilities were found at the restaurants in some of the Malir outlets. The SFA team also raided a bakery ‘Friend Bakers’ and imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 over poor hygiene.  Similarly another roadside restaurant was fined Rs 20,000 for neglecting he...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trump says US generals feel Beirut blast was likely an ‘attack’

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Tuesday cast a massive explosion in Beirut as a possible attack, despite statements by Lebanese leaders that it was likely caused by highly explosive material that had been stored at warehouses in the capital for years. “The United States stands ready to assist Lebanon,” Trump said at a White House briefing of Tuesday’s explosion, which killed at least 78 people and injured thousands. “It looks like a terrible attack.” When asked later about his depiction of the explosion, Trump said that he had met with some U.S. generals who feel the blast was not “some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event.” He told reporters that according to these unnamed generals “they seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind.” The Pentagon referred questions to the White House. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was unclear where Trump was receiving his information but that initial information did not appear...
Post a Comment
Read more