Israel frees French-Palestinian after 13 months without trial

Salah Hamouri was convicted in the past of plotting to assassinate Rabbi Ovadia Yosef; he was freed in 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner swap; Israel has said he is a PFLP member

Salah Hamouri, a French-Palestinian lawyer, embraces his father Hassan at their home in the village of Dahyat al-Barid near Jerusalem in the West Bank, after being released from an Israeli prison, on September 30, 2018. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
Salah Hamouri, a French-Palestinian lawyer, embraces his father Hassan at their home in the village of Dahyat al-Barid near Jerusalem in the West Bank, after being released from an Israeli prison, on September 30, 2018. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)

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 was required to post a bond of 3,000 shekels ($825).

Hamouri was arrested at his home in 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.

Neither suspects nor their lawyers were 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.

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

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

“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,” Hamouri said.

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.

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 criticized by Palestinians, human rights groups, and members of the international community who say Israel abuses the measure.

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 Yosef, a prominent rabbi and spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas political party.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in Jerusalem, September 2012. (Flash90)

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.

Most Popular
read more: