The wife of Palestinian professor Abdul-Halim al-Ashqar said that the lawyers defending her husband succeeded in extracting a court verdict ordering the US security authorities to bring him back immediately from Israel.
In press remarks to the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) Asma Muhanna stated that the court order banned the transfer of her husband to Israel adding that Ashqar was flown back to the US from Ben Gurion airport and sent to a jail in Virginia.
A few days ago Ashqar was kidnapped illegally by the FBI and taken aboard a plane to Ben Gurion airport in Israel in order to hand him over to the authorities there but he was kept on the plane following a US court order.
Later Ashqar was returned to the US aboard the same plane after a US court issued a decision in this regard.
In November 2007 the American authorities had unfairly sentenced Ashqar to 11 years in prison after placing him under house arrest for nearly two years. He wore an ankle monitor on his right leg in his home in Virginia.
He was discharged from his teaching position at Washington University in August 2004. He was subsequently arrested and accused with no evidence of illegally collecting funds for Hamas and put under house arrest.
Ashqar nominated himself as an independent presidential candidate in the Palestinian election held on January 9 2005. He was one of the 10 contenders seeking to succeed Yasser Arafat who died on November 11 2004 as head of the Palestinian Authority.
