Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
Illustrative photo of a prisoner (Kobi Gideon/Flash90)
An Israeli court on Thursday sentenced a lawyer to seven and a half years in prison for helping to relay information between Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails and the terror group’s leaders in the Gaza Strip.
Muhammad Abed, whose clients included security prisoners, was in contact with Firas Fidi, a Hamas activist who was convicted of carrying out terror attacks in Israel, sentenced to life imprisonment, and then released to Gaza as part of the 2011 prisoner swap for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
He was also convicted of being in touch with five “foreign agents,” with the aim of helping Hamas and harming state security.
In addition to the prison term, the Haifa District Court gave Abed a choice between one year’s suspended sentence, a NIS 50,000 ($13,700) fine to be paid by May 1, 2018, and an additional five months behind bars.
Responding to the sentence, Abed told Channel 2 news that he’d been done an injustice and would appeal to the Supreme Court.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
Lawyer Muhammad Abed, sentenced to 7.5 years jail for helping the Hamas terror organization by passing information to prisoners, in court, April 27, 2017 (screenshot: Channel 2)
Abed’s lawyer, Ahmad Yunis, said the charges were “absurd” and noted that former Joint (Arab) List lawymaker Basel Ghattas was given only two years in prison as part of a plea bargain for the worse crime of smuggling cellphones to inmates.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
