GAZA (PIC)– The Hamas Movement strongly denounced the Fatah-affiliated military court for acquitting five officers charged with torturing to death a Palestinian prisoner called Amr Haitham in the Palestinian Authority’s jails in the West Bank saying this verdict would encourage crime.
“This court ruling confirmed there are parties in the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah participating in a crime against our people in the West Bank” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Wednesday.
Spokesman Barhoum also said that exculpating the real murderers of Amr would provide Mahmoud Abbas’s militias with a cover for its crimes and violations.
The spokesman appealed to human rights organizations and the Palestinian factions to break their silence and state their positions towards the court decision and the protection provided by Abbas’s authority for its security apparatuses.
The court on Tuesday acquitted the officers of their crime and demanded the PA intelligence apparatus to pay financial compensation to the family because of its failure to take necessary measures to protect a citizen in detention but Nidal Haitham the brother of the slain prisoner rejected on behalf of the family the verdict and insisted on punishment of the culprits.
For their part Palestinian lawmakers Nayef Rajoub and Hamed Al-Beitawi stated that the court decision which acquitted murderers of Haitham is a crime against law and an official sanction for killing.
The lawmakers said in a statement that the family of Haitham provided the court with sufficient evidence against the perpetrators and documents proving that their son died as a result of torture at the hands of those five officers but the court ignored that and used the law to provide a legal cover for the killers.
They highlighted that this court decision is further evidence of the lawlessness and the absence of justice in the West Bank.
