Monday 22 March 2010

Abbas’s militias kidnap 11 Hamas members in West Bank areas

PIC

[ 22/03/2010 - 06:53 PM ]

NABLUS, (PIC)-- Mahmoud Abbas’s militias kidnapped on Monday 11 Palestinian citizens affiliated with Hamas Movement during raids on the cities of Nablus, Tulkarem, Al-Khalil, Ramallah and Qalqiliya, according to a statement issued by Hamas.

The statement said that most of those citizens were ex-detainees in the jails of Abbas’s militias or Israel and were kidnapped in the context of the security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli occupation authority (IOA).

In a related context, Palestinian eyewitnesses reported that Abbas’s militias and Israeli troops carried out a joint campaign of raids on homes of school students who were thought to have participated in last Friday clashes.

The statement added that Abbas’s military courts issued a number of imprisonment sentences against Hamas-affiliated citizens including Mohamed Abu Shalbak, Ahmed Abu Kweik, Khaled Al-Sarraj and Saif Qadi.

It noted that a Palestinian civil court had issued decisions to release the four detainees, but Abbas’s militias refused to comply and referred them to a military court which in return issued imprisonment sentences against them after seven extension hearings.

In a separate incident, informed sources said that a Palestinian court approved a request filed by Abbas’s militias to resume interrogation sessions with Hamas official Sameh Afaneh and also to allow them to use torture to extract important information and confessions from him as they claimed.

Afaneh is a member of Qalqiliya municipal council and the former dean of the Islamic law faculty. He also served a five-year imprisonment sentence in Israeli jails and was kidnapped at the end of 2009 by Abbas’s militias just three days after his release.

His wife was also fired from her job because of his affiliation with Hamas.

For their part, Hamas lawmakers in Ramallah strongly denounced in a joint statement the PA military court in the city for issuing unjust prison sentences against four citizens affiliated with their Movement.

They said that the persistence of the PA security apparatuses and their military courts in issuing such verdicts confirms with no room to doubt that the PA in Ramallah is not willing at all to provide an environment conducive to the restoration of the national unity.

The statement described these sentences as arbitrary and unfair, based on fabricated charges and aimed to suppress freedoms and the resistance in the West Bank.

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 Uprooted Palestinian

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