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“I was trying to do everything for peace between the two people” |
TEL
AVIV, August 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel launched the
most high-profile trial of the Palestinian intifada Wednesday, August
14, formally charging Marwan Barghuti, the West Bank leader of
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, with murder and
terrorism.
Barghuti,
43, appearing handcuffed and flanked by police in a Tel Aviv court, made
a brief statement to reporters before heading in to hear charges that he
headed the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed Fatah offshoot behind
scores of anti-Israeli attacks.
“Everybody
in the world knows that Marwan Barghuti is fighting for peace. I am a
peace man,” he said in English.
Israel,
which captured him in a Ramallah invasion in April, has linked him to
the deaths of dozens of Israelis and the wounding of hundreds more. If
found guilty, he faces life behind bars, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
“I
was trying to do everything for peace between the two people,”
Barghuti insisted.
“I
do believe that the best solution for the two people is two states ...
there's no other solution.”
Barghuti’s
lawyer, Khadr Shkueirat told the court his client, who is a Palestinian
lawmaker as well as being Fatah’s secretary general in the West Bank,
refused to recognize the tribunal’s legitimacy to try him. He also
demanded that he be presented with the evidence against his client.
Israeli
Judge Zvi Gorfinkel ordered the court into recess until September 5
after the prosecution formally read the charges against Barghuti,
including various counts of murder and belonging to a “terrorist
organization”.
The
judge ordered Barghuti be held until the end of the trial.
Shkueirat
also presented a list of what he called indictments against Israel, but
Gorfinkel waved them down, saying it was not the time for such charges.
The
gesture highlighted the risks of the trial for Israel, with some
commentators saying Barghuti could use it as a public platform to attack
Israel’s occupation and its heavy-handed military tactics, said AFP.
Israel
has brought several Palestinian resistance activists to court in recent
months, but Barghuti’s trial is the most prominent case to come to
trial yet.
Before
being captured, Barghuti was number one on Israel’s most wanted list,
as he was an icon of the Palestinian uprising that erupted in September
2000 against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land seized in the
1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Barghuti
has himself denied being the founder of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades but
regularly hailed its operations. He refused to cooperate during his
three months of interrogation, claiming the status of a political
prisoner.
However,
on April 1, three days after Israeli forces poured into the West Bank to
smash what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the “infrastructure of
terrorism,” the Brigades mentioned Barghuti as their leader for the
first time.
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Palestinian children call for the release of Palestinian detainees |
“The
last few days have proved that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, under the
leadership of Marwan Barghuti, stand almost alone against the enemy ...
and provide evidence to the world of Marwan Barghuti’s heroism,” the
group said in a statement.
Educated
in political science at Beir Zeit University near Ramallah, and fluent
in English and Hebrew, Barghuti spent several of his teenage years in an
Israeli jail before being exiled to Tunisia during the first Palestinian
intifada in 1988.
He
returned after the Oslo peace accords were signed in 1993 to be elected
to the Palestinian parliament in the first elections after the
territories were granted autonomy.
He
was always known as a tough politician implacably opposed to the Israeli
occupation of Palestinian territories and ready to mobilize opinion - or
according to the Israelis, armed resistance - against them.
From
the early days of the intifada the Israelis accused him of orchestrating
the crowds of stone-throwing Palestinian youths who clashed almost every
day with armed Israeli troops. But he always insisted that “the people
run the intifada, not me.”
On
Tuesday, August 13, demonstrators in the West Bank Town of Bethlehem
called for the release of Palestinian prisoners, including Barghuti, in
Israeli jails.
They
called for peace and carried pictures of Barghuti.
There
are nearly 7,000 Palestinian detainees being held in 19 Israeli prisons,
out of which 4,000 were detained during the Israeli Operation Defensive
Shield which Israeli launched on March 29.
These
detainees are facing various kinds of agonies which start from the
moment they are abducted till the moment they are released.
Ever
since the latest Israeli invasion of Palestinian territories, the
Israeli occupation forces have barred lawyers and human rights
organizations from visiting the detainees which made it very difficult
to determine the circumstances and places of detention.
The
Israeli military law number 1500 which had been frozen for nine years
was reactivated. Instead of 8 days, the law stipulates that residents
could be detained for 18 days without being tried or without them
getting in contact with their lawyers. This law was activated on March
29. Previously, it only functioned during the pre-Oslo agreement era.
The
occupation forces also reactivated the policy of administrative
detention which is banned internationally. Over 900 administrative
detention decisions were carried out, which included several members of
the Palestinian security forces and which ranged from 3 to 6 month
renewable detention periods.
