An Israeli military court has rejected a request filed for the release of prisoner Nael al-Barghouthi the longest-serving detainee in Israeli jails.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner Society the Ofer military court rejected a petition filed by Barghouthi’s lawyer for his release and decided to retain the previous prison sentence that had been issued against him 43 years ago at the pretext that there was a secret file against him.
Barghouthi is from Kobar town in Ramallah and Bireh province in the occupied West Bank. He was arrested in 1978 and then sentenced to life imprisonment and 18 years. He was released as part of the 2011 prisoner swap deal.
In 2014 he was rearrested and then sentenced to 30 months in prison but after he completed that jail term the Israeli occupation authority refused to release him and reinstated the previous sentence against him.
Barghouthi has spent the longest period of detention in the history of the Palestinian Captive Movement a total of more than 43 years of which he spent 34 years continuously. He lost the majority of his family members during the years of his detention.
