Proof against Palestine dissident ‘fabricated’: Lawyer

JERUSALEM

A lawyer for Palestinian resistance icon Sheikh Raed Salah has accused the Israeli authorities of fabricating evidence against his client in an indictment filed late last month.

“Salah's defense team presented documented evidence of these fabrications at a Wednesday session of the Haifa District Court, during which we lodged an appeal against the Israeli Magistrate Court’s decision to keep Sheikh Salah in detention until the end of his trial,” lawyer Khaled Zabarqa told Anadolu Agency on Thursday.

“We have proven to the court that some of the words attributed to Sheikh Salah in the indictment were invented,” he said.

“Before the trial, we presented a video of one of his speeches, which showed the indictment had attributed words to him that he never said,” Zabarqa added.

Israel’s public prosecution authorities have accused Sheikh Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, of “inciting violence”.

“We also explained to the court that some of the terms cited by public prosecutors -- falsely attributed to Sheikh Salah to confirm this incitement -- were religious in nature, such as the word ‘ribat’ [to reside in a place for religious purposes],” Zabarqa said.

“We explained to the court the religious concept of ribat, including the practice of ribat in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as a kind of worship performed by Muslims,” he added.

“We told the court that attempts [by the authorities] to link religious terms to terrorism were unacceptable,” he said, “including the prosecution’s attempts to portray Sheikh Salah's use of the word ‘shaheed’ [‘martyr’] as evidence of incitement [to violence].”

“We further told the court that, in an Arab and Muslim context, the word ‘martyr’ is used to describe anyone killed by Israeli occupation forces,” he added.

Earlier this month, Sheikh Salah was remanded in custody for the course of his trial.

Sheikh Salah faces charges of being a member of an “illegal organization” and “inciting violence” in a speech he gave last month at the funerals of three Israeli Arabs who killed two Israeli policemen at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Sheikh Salah was arrested on Aug. 14 at his home in the northern city of Umm al-Fahm.

A longstanding icon of the Palestinian resistance, Sheikh Salah leads the Islamic Movement in Israel, which was formally banned by the Israeli authorities in 2015.

Reporting by Abdel-Raouf Arnaout; Writing by Ali Abo Rezeg;