 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 26 Aug. - 1 Sep. 1999 Issue No. 444 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 26 Aug. - 1 Sep. 1999 Issue No. 444
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Due process, anyone?
By Dominic ColdwellStephan Smyrek, 27, may be a bit of an oddball. Five years ago, the German converted to Islam and asked his mother to call him "Abdel-Karim", although she insisted his name would always be "Stephan". The father of an Egyptian girl later forced Smyrek to break off a romance with his daughter.
Soon thereafter, the youth became a terrorist, claims Israeli prosecutor Dvora Khen. When Smyrek entered Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport in November 1997, he was arrested for allegedly possessing a video-tape, on which he supposedly said that he wanted to locate a crowded place in Tel Aviv or Haifa to carry out a suicide bomb attack.
According to Khen, Smyrek had earlier established contact with Hizbullah member Fahdi Khamdar in Germany. A spokesman for the organisation, however, denied that Hizbullah had any connection to Smyrek, saying the story was fabricated by Israel's security services.
Khen, however, claimed that Khamdar sent Smyrek to a Hizbullah training camp in Turkey during the summer of 1997 where the German was allegedly instructed in the use of light arms. However, as a soldier completing his military service in the German Army, Smyrek already knew how to handle weapons.
Supposedly under orders from Hizbullah, Smyrek was then sent back to Germany -- allegedly in order to travel to Israel on a forged German passport, and supposedly to target a suitable spot for an explosion.
Khen based these claims on a "confession" that Israel's internal security services Shin Beth and Shabak extracted under torture, while Smyrek was held in isolation until the beginning of his trial in January this year. Smyrek's defence lawyer Ronit Robinson has contested the use of such dubious evidence. In an interview with the German magazine Focus last year, Smyrek said that under torture anyone would confess to anything. In court, he has since recanted his "confession".
Meanwhile, Nikolaus Borchers, a German prosecutor hoping to take up the case, was forced to conclude that Israeli "evidence" did not warrant filing charges against Smyrek. Nonetheless, the Israeli prosecutor accused Smyrek of threatening Israel's security, conspiring with a hostile power and being a member of a terrorist organisation.
Attempts by the Israeli judge, who presided over the case, to persuade the prosecution to settle the matter out of court failed. Last summer, Israel turned down a German request to extradite Smyrek. Last week, the three judges of the Tel Aviv District Court conceded that Smyrek did not plan to commit a suicide attack himself. But they unanimously found him guilty of all three charges and sentenced him to 10 years in prison, denying that torture had been used. Robinson has vowed to appeal the sentence in Israel's Supreme Court.
Smyrek's conviction, however, is also politically motivated. The judges explained their verdict by saying it was "aimed at deterring terrorists from committing such activities in the future." The claim that Hizbullah planned a suicide bombing inside Israel, however, is hardly credible. The organisation is not known ever to have perpetrated such an attack within Israel's boundaries.
But Smyrek's conviction could serve as a useful pretext for the current Israeli crackdown in south Lebanon. Last week, the sabre-rattling Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh trumpeted that Israel must continue fighting Hizbullah in light of the court's ruling. "The Smyrek verdict highlights the problem with Hizbullah. It's a serious problem." But perhaps Sneh should consider whether the suspension of the rule of law constitutes a no less serious problem.
