Abed Abou Shahadeh is Arab journalist detained; police accuse him of contact with foreign agent

The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court has removed the gag order on the case of the Arab journalist arrested overnight, and orders him kept in custody for an additional four days until Sunday, rather than the eight days requested by police.

The journalist is Abed Abou Shahadeh, a cousin of Balad party chief Sami Abou Shahadeh.

He is charged with contact with a foreign agent. His family says about 15 security personnel raided his home in Jaffa overnight and arrested him without giving a reason. The investigation is being conducted jointly by police and the Shin Bet.

Abed Abou Shahadeh hosts the Arab48 news site’s flagship podcast Al-Midan, and previously sat on the Tel Aviv-Jaffa city council for Yafa, a municipal alliance of Balad and Hadash, two Arab-led parties that also ran jointly for the Knesset.

His team of defense lawyers says the foreign agent in question is former Balad MK and leader Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel in 2007 amid suspicions he aided Hezbollah in the previous year’s Lebanon war.

Abou Shahadeh traveled to Doha over a week ago to interview Bishara for Arab48 ahead of Israel’s October 27 Knesset election.

His legal team argues that Bishara is not necessarily a foreign agent as defined by law, and that in any case the contents of the meeting have been public for some time and did not include any conspiracy against Israeli security. He has previously interviewed Bishara without facing legal trouble.

A police representative at the Tel Aviv court declines to say whether Bishara is the foreign agent or whether the podcast is the reason for the arrest, and refers the judge to a confidential dossier submitted by investigators.

Judge Shelly Kotin notes that Abou Shahadeh does not hold a Government Press Office card, and had described himself in his interrogation as a political consultant.