Mohammad al-Halabi, former Gaza chief for World Imaginative and prescient, was sentenced after already serving six years behind bars.
An Israeli court docket has sentenced the previous Gaza consultant of a significant United States-based Christian help company to 12 years in jail on allegations of sending cash to the Palestinian armed motion Hamas.
Mohammad al-Halabi, former head of operations at World Imaginative and prescient in Gaza, was sentenced by the Beersabe’ (Beersheba) district court docket on Tuesday, which dominated he would serve one other six years along with the six he has already spent in jail.
The court docket convicted al-Halabi in June on prices of sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas, which governs the besieged Gaza Strip, an accusation he and his lawyer have constantly denied.
Al-Halabi’s lawyer reiterated his declare of innocence following Tuesday’s sentencing. “He says that he’s harmless, he did nothing and there's no proof,” Maher Hanna mentioned, including that they'd enchantment the decision to the Israeli Supreme Court docket.
“Quite the opposite, he proved within the court docket above any cheap doubt that he made certain that no cash will likely be [given] on to Hamas.”
In response to Hanna, if al-Halabi, a father-of-five, had admitted to wrongdoings, he would have been launched.
“However he insisted that reality additionally has worth. And for his private values, and for the worldwide humanitarian work values, he insisted on the reality, and he can not admit a factor that he didn't do,” the lawyer mentioned.
Israeli forces arrested al-Halabi in June 2016 on the Beit Hanoun (Erez) border crossing as he was returning to Gaza from work-related conferences, on allegations of transferring humanitarian funds of various quantities as much as $50m to assist Hamas.
Al-Halabi spent six years behind bars and had greater than 160 hearings earlier than he was convicted.
Attorneys and human rights teams have identified that his trial was marred by due course of violations, together with extended detention with out cost, the holding of proof Israel claims to carry in opposition to him as “secret,” and that he was uncovered to torture.
World Imaginative and prescient mentioned in a assertion that the 12-year sentence was “deeply disappointing” and that it falls “in sharp distinction to the proof and details of the case”.
The organisation mentioned it “condemns any and all acts of terrorism or assist for such actions … we don't see proof of this stuff on this case.”
“The arrest, six-year trial, unjust verdict and this sentence are emblematic of actions that hinder humanitarian work in Gaza and the West Financial institution,” mentioned World Imaginative and prescient.
“It provides to the chilling impression on World Imaginative and prescient and different help or improvement teams working to help Palestinians.”
Human Rights Watch mentioned on Tuesday that the sentencing was “a profound miscarriage of justice”.
“Holding al-Halabi for six years based mostly on secret proof, which a number of investigations rejected, made a mockery of due course of. Detaining him for six extra is simply merciless and inhumane,” Israel and Palestine director Omar Shakir mentioned on Twitter.
“He ought to way back have been launched. The al-Halabi case exposes how Israel makes use of its authorized system to supply a veneer of legality to masks its ugly apartheid over hundreds of thousands of Palestinians,” he added.
In 2017, the Australian authorities, which is a major donor to World Imaginative and prescient, concluded in a probe that no cash was used for transferring funds to Hamas.
Earlier this month, Israeli forces shut down and criminalised seven Palestinian human rights and civil society organisations within the occupied West Financial institution.
In Gaza, al-Halabi’s mom described the anguish of following what she referred to as an unjust trial.
“I felt like I used to be having a nervous breakdown, and I used to be screaming,” Amal al-Halabi mentioned.
“That is injustice. The place is the worldwide neighborhood and the place are Mohammed’s human rights?”
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