sentence : perpétuité pour un leader du FPLP

Life sentence for PFLP military leader

01/01/2010

Jerusalem – Ma’an – An Israeli court in Jerusalem sentenced A’hed Abu Ghulmah, a leader of the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, to a life term and an additional five years of imprisonment.

He was previously charged with leading the military group that that killed Israel's right-wing tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, in October 2001 in response to the assassination of the PFLP's secretary-general, Abu Ali Mustafa.

Abu Ghulmah, from the village of Beit Furik east of the West Bank city of Nablus, is married with three children.

He was arrested in March 2006 along with current PFLP secretary-general Ahmad Sa'adat and others when the Israeli army broke into, destroyed and abducted the group from the Palestinian Authority-controlled central prison in Jericho.

Israel also arrested Linan and Mohammad Abu Ghulma, Ahed’s sister and brother. The Abu Ghulma family described the sentence as unjust and appealed to the international community to intervene to release A’hed, whom they described as a resistance fighter.

Israel considers the PFLP, along with its military wing, a terrorist organization.