Tuesday 11 August 2009

PA justice ministry: Killers of Hamadneh will sooner or later be prosecuted

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[ 11/08/2009 - 10:48 AM ]

GAZA/ NABLUS, (PIC)-- Calls from Palestinian factions to investigate the death of Hamas’s supporter in the PA Junaid jail in Nablus city Fadi Hamadneh mounted as Hamas described the increasing number of death cases under merciless torture in former PA chief Mahmoud Abbas’s jails as a serious escalation.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) demanded, in a statement it issued over Hamadneh’s death, the third such death in less than a month, a thorough investigation.

The PFLP also highlighted the necessity to put an end to such violation of human rights in Abbas’s jails, stressing that the law and the judiciary system must be respected and arbitrary detention should stop once and for all.
It warned that the Palestinian social fabric could be badly damaged, and the Palestinian struggle for freedom would be at risk if such unsolicited activities persisted.

The Islamic Jihad, for its part, held Abbas and his militia in the West Bank solely responsible for the assassination of Hamadneh, warning that the policy of torture in Abbas’s jails has become a “programmed policy”.

The Palestinian group also castigated the PA security forces in the West Bank for resorting to such a policy against their fellow Palestinians, revealing that many captives in Abbas’s jails were rushed to local hospitals across the West Bank in critical condition after being tortured.

“Indeed, we didn’t imagine even for a moment that the PA security forces would follow the Israeli policy of medical neglect, and to jeopardize lives of Palestinian captives in its jails as the case of Ala Abu Al-Rub (an Islamic Jihad activist) who was deliberately denied medical attention despite his critical condition”, the group asserted in a statement it issued over the death of Hamadneh.

It also seconded the PFLP demand of forming an independent national investigation committee to check the cause of Hamadneh’s death.

Routine practice:

However, the strongest reaction against the death of Hamadneh came from the legitimate Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip as its spokesman Tahir Al-Nunu described the assassination as “heinous crime”.

He accused the PA security forces in Ramallah of making killing of Palestinian resistance captives in their jails as “routine practice”, asserting that such killings belie Abbas and Fatah's claims that they want national reconciliation.

In this regard, Nunu urged Palestinian resistance factions and human rights groups to take stern action against those “outlawed” groups that shed innocent Palestinian blood.

The death of Hamadneh comes less than one week of the death of Hamas’s political leader Kamal Abu Tuaimah who died under torture at the preventive security jails.

Palestinian people won’t remain silent:

For his part, Palestinian lawmaker Ahmad Bahar described the crime as a shame on Abbas and his militia, underlining that patience of the Palestinian people over those crimes won’t last long.

“It seems that that they (PA security forces) didn’t learn from their past mistakes in the Gaza Strip where they killed resistance fighters, preachers, and university professors that led to catastrophic repercussions on them, which would recur in the West Bank if they persisted in this foolish policy”, he underscored.


PA justice ministry: Killers of Hamadneh will sooner or later be prosecuted

[ 11/08/2009 - 04:18 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian justice ministry in Gaza Strip has strongly condemned the killing of Palestinian citizen Fadi Hamadneh in the infamous Junaid jail in the West Bank city of Nablus at the hands of the PA security forces loyal to former PA chief and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

“This programmed criminality wouldn’t pass unpunished and all those involved in the killing of Hamadneh would sooner or later be brought to justice and prosecuted because such crimes couldn’t be dropped by the passage of time” a statement issued by the ministry over Hamadneh’s death asserted.

Moreover, the ministry accused the militia of Abbas of attempting to humiliate the Palestinian people in the West Bank and to inculcate fear and defeatism in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian citizens in the West Bank.

The ministry, in this concern, urged human rights organizations on the international, regional, and local levels to strongly deprecate the crime, and to take decisive stands against those heinous crimes.

The PA information ministry underlined, in a separate statement it issued over the matter, that the assassination of Hamadneh was carried out on US and Israeli orders and under the supervision of US officer Keith Dayton, the PA-Israeli security coordinator and the de-facto ruler of the West Bank as West Bankers would like to call him.

The ministry called on the PA in Ramallah to free all resistance fighters from its jails to defend Palestine and to resist the occupation and Israeli settlers who spread mischief in the area, underscoring that jails were for collaborators and not for heroes of resistance.

In addition, the ministry deplored reports published by suspicious media outlets that Hamadneh had committed suicide, stressing the Hamadneh was tortured to death as evident in the torture marks seen all over his body.

Substantiating claims of the ministry, a number of fiends of Hamdneh who were recently freed and were with him in the same ill-fated jail confirmed that Hamadneh came under harsh and intolerable torture sessions, including beating him on the chest and head, and hanging him from his feet for long hours among other heinous practices.

Relatives of Hamadneh rushed to the jail after the news of the death of their son spread in the city, but security guards at the jail mercilessly dispersed and beat them. Father of Hamadneh sustained fracture in the skull, and his two brothers were wounded.

Hamadneh is the fifth Palestinian captive to die in Abbas’s jails, and the third in less than a month amidst unexplainable silence on the part of international human rights and legal institutions, and countries who have been bragging about freedom and democracy such as the USA and the European countries.

Khuraisha: PA justification on Hamadneh’s death unethical

[ 11/08/2009 - 05:41 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The second deputy-speaker of the PA legislature MP Dr. Hasan Khuraisha has rejected the PA justification over the death of Hamas’s supporter Fadi Hamadneh in former PA chief Mahmoud Abbas’s jails in Nablus city, adding that such PA scenario couldn’t convince the Palestinian people.

The PA alleged that Hamadneh committed suicide by strangling himself with a blanket in the jail, but Khuraisha described such analysis as an “unsuccessful” attempt by the PA security forces to cover up the crime, saying “there were no blankets in the detention cells in the Junaid jail to be used for committing suicide”.

When asked about the PLC role in investigating such cases, Khuraisha acknowledged that members of the PLC move individually and not as one bloc due to the internal rift that paralyzed its work.

But the Palestinian legislator wasn’t optimistic that an investigation of the case would change the behavior of the PA security forces, explaining, “We attach no hope on a possible change in the behavior of the PA even if we carried out an investigation over Hamadneh’s death because we had a bad experience with the PA that ignored the outcome of the investigation over the death of Majd Barghouthi (another Hamas member who was tortured to death)… we see no good omens in this regard”.

Nevertheless, Khuraisha stressed that the PA, whether it likes it or not, was responsible for the death of Hamadneh who died in its jails, calling for serious and decisive action against such practices.

He also warned that there was a public "dismay" at the recurrence of such incidents in the PA security dungeons.

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