[ 15/06/2009 - 05:40 PM ]
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- The Palestinian center for human rights (PCHR) revealed Monday that paramedic Haitham Amr died as a result of his exposure to excruciating torture in the PA intelligence headquarters in Al-Khalil, calling for investigating this crime and publicizing the results.
According to a press release received by the PIC, the center’s investigation indicate that at about 20:00 on Thursday, 11 June 2009, a joint force of 50 members of the Palestinian security forces, stormed a house belonging to the family of Haitham Amr, 33, in Beit Al-Roush village, southwest of Al-Khalil, before rounding him up and taking him to the PA intelligence detention facility in the city.
At noon on Sunday, 14 June 2009, Amr’s father went to the detention center and asked for permission to visit his son. His request was denied. At midnight Amr was transferred to Al-Khalil hospital in a critical condition. At about 02:00 on Monday, 15 June 2009, he was pronounced dead. At about 07:00, the family was informed of his death through notable members of his clan, the center’s probe unveiled.
According to the center, eyewitnesses told the family that they had seen Amr immediately after his arrival at the hospital, and had noticed signs of torture on his face.
The family also reported that their son's body was transferred to the forensic medicine institute in Abu Dis for autopsy. The family was not informed of the autopsy, which was conducted secretly.
A PCHR field worker, who saw the corpse before burial, reported that he noticed blue signs on the back, the buttocks, the legs, the feet and the left hand; large blue spots on the thighs and a large red spot on the left buttock.
Haitham Amr was a board member of the Islamic charitable society, and worked as a nurse in two medical centers of the ministry of health in Beit Al-Roush village and the neighboring Deir Al-Asal village. He was married and had three children.
In the same context, thousands of Palestinian citizens in Al-Dura area, south of Al-Khalil, marched at noon Monday at the funeral of slain Amr amid an atmosphere of sadness and anger at the PA militia’s practices against the Palestinian people in different West Bank areas.
In a press statement to the PIC, spokesman for the popular resistance committees Abu Mujahid strongly denounced the security apparatuses under the command of ex-PA chief Mahmoud Abbas for torturing paramedic Amr to death inside the intelligence building in Al-Khalil.
Abu Mujahid stressed that the PA security apparatuses’ persistence in torturing and killing Palestinian citizens and fighters reached the highest level of decadence and moral decline and became par excellence consistent with the Israeli occupation’s policies.
In a statement in the West Bank received by the PIC on Monday, the Hamas Movement said that the PA militia’s attempt to cover up the crime through claiming that Amr tried to escape by jumping from the second floor or talking about its formation of an investigation committee is a failed attempt to cover up this heinous crime, adding that the clear signs of torture on the body of Amr belied such allegations.
The statement underlined that the crime of killing Amr is part of the PA security apparatuses efforts to obstruct the national dialog and a gift given for the security reconciliation committees formed recently by Hamas and Fatah in Gaza and Ramallah.
For his part, senior Hamas official and head of the security committee at the PLC Dr. Ismail Al-Ashqar said that the crime of torturing Amr to death in the PA security apparatuses’ jails proved that they are subjected to Israel’s dictates that demands the elimination of the Palestinian resistance and its supporters in the West Bank.
Dr. Ashqar added, in a press release received by the PIC, that this crime also confirmed that the national dialog with Fatah is useless, stressing that Fatah should take a firm and clear position curbing the crimes committed by its militia against the Palestinians in the West Bank.
In a press statement to the PIC, Hamas stressed that this new crime confirmed that the militia of Abbas and his aide Salam Fayyad does not have any affiliation to religion or homeland.
For his part, MP Mushir Al-Masri, the secretary-general of the Hamas parliamentary bloc, stressed Monday that there should be no dialog while the bloodshed and the pursuit of Palestinian fighters and citizens are still ongoing in the West Bank, calling on the Palestinian factions to state their positions towards the murder of paramedic Omar in Abbas’s jails in Al-Khalil.
In a press statement to the PIC, MP Masri said that this crime confirmed that Fatah faction is not willing to end the inter-Palestinian division, but rather it uses the reconciliation committees as a cover-up for its crimes in Abbas’s jails.
The Hamas change and reform parliamentary bloc held, in a statement received by the PIC on Monday, ex-PA chief Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the murder of Omar in one of his jails, demanding Egypt in its capacity as the sponsor of the national dialog to take strong action towards this crime.
The bloc considered that the dialog with murderers a waste of time, calling on Hamas to suspend the national reconciliation talks with Fatah, which only lead to further crimes, and to focus on exposing and prosecuting those criminals affiliated with the PA in Ramallah.
In the context of political arrest campaign carried out against Hamas, Abbas’s security apparatuses kidnapped on Sunday 14 Palestinian citizens affiliated with the Movement in different West Bank cities including the dean of engineers in Nablus, a lecturer at the university of Al-Najah and ex-detainees.
Hamas supporter dies of torture in Abbas's jails
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