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PFLP
Rejects Zeevi Killers' Sentences Handed Down By Palestinian Court
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A
Palestinian military court sentenced four members of the PFLP
to prison |
GAZA
CITY, April 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said Thursday, April 25, the
sentences handed down by a Palestinian court inside Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat's besieged office to four of its members for
the retaliatory killing of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi
should be cancelled.
"The
PFLP considers the court's decision inadmissible ... and we demand
that the Palestinian Authority cancel the ruling," senior PFLP
official Ali Qatawi said in the Gaza Strip, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
"That
court is not appropriate to judge resistance activists fighting for
the nation," he said.
Qatawi
also said the trial took place because of "previous U.S.
demands" and because the Palestinian Authority "gave in to
continuous Israeli threats."
The
four men from the armed wing of the PFLP, including the group's head,
were sentenced by a military court and their sentences ratified by
Arafat, who has been under Israeli siege in the West Bank town of
Ramallah since March 29.
The
three-man tribunal sentenced Hamdi Qoraan to 18 years in prison,
Bassel al-Asmar to 12 years and Mejdi Rimawi to eight years, an
official inside Arafat's offices said.
Ahed
Abu Gholma, head of the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades, the PFLP's armed
wing which killed hard-line Zeevi in Jerusalem October 2001, was
sentenced to one year, the official said.
Despite
the sentencing, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reiterated his
demand that the suspected killers be turned over to Israel.
"Their trial is strange to say the least," Sharon told
Israeli public radio. "They need not have been judged [in
Ramallah] since in any case we insist on their extradition and they
will be brought to justice in Israel," he added.
An
aide to Arafat, Nabil Abu Rudainah, said Israel had no right, under
the Oslo accords signed by the two sides, to demand the extradition of
the activists held in Ramallah.
"It
is our right to put them on trial because they were in Palestinian
custody," Abu Rdainah said.
Sharon
said the Palestinians must also hand over top financier Fuad Shubaki,
accused of organizing an illegal arms shipment allegedly bound from
Iran to Gaza in January, before it will lift its siege on Arafat's
base. "We insist on the extradition of Fuad Shubaki, who
maintained ties between Iran and the Palestinian Authority and who
financed, on Arafat's orders, the expenses for organizers of
anti-Israeli suicide attacks," Sharon said.
Video
footage of the brief trial held on Thursday morning showed the judge,
Brigadier-General Ribhi Arafat, reading the sentences as three of the
defendants stood and a fourth sat on a chair with a bandage on his
leg.
Israeli
Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, an ultra-nationalist 74-year-old
former general who had advocated deporting Palestinians from the West
Bank occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, was gunned down
in a Jerusalem hotel last October by members of the PFLP.
The
PFLP said the killing was to avenge Israel's assassination of its
leader Abu Ali Mustafa last August.
In
Damascus, PFLP spokesman Maher Taher condemned the trial as a
"farce" but also a "dangerous" development.
"The
PFLP considers the trial a farce and as invalid from a judicial and
political point of view because the Palestinian Authority does not
have the right to put on trial Palestinians resisting
occupation," he told AFP.
"It
is also a dangerous political development which signals that the
Palestinian Authority, despite all the destruction and Israeli crimes,
is still counting on a resumption of negotiations" with Israel,
he said.
"It
is clear that the Palestinian Authority has not learnt the lesson that
it is impossible to make peace with criminals and assassins such as
Ariel Sharon and (Israel's army chief Shaul) Mofaz," said Taher.
"The
state security courts are operating in contravention of international
standards for fair trial, with people being tried and sentenced within
hours," said Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid.
"The biggest violation is that convicted people have no right of
appeal."
Israel
has conditioned Arafat's release from Ramallah on the extradition of
Zeevi's alleged killers, holed up together with the Palestinian
President since Israeli occupation troops moved to his very doorstep
on March 29.
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