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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Bargaining chips
ISRAEL's cabinet said on Tuesday that it would abide by a High Court order and free 13 Lebanese detainees held without trial for more than a decade as bargaining chips for missing Israeli soldiers allegedly held by the Lebanese resistance. But two top Lebanese guerrilla officials, Sheikh Abdel-Karim Obeid, a cleric from the Hezbollah organisation kidnapped in 1989, and Mustafa Dirani of the Amal movement, abducted in 1994, will remain behind bars, the Israeli cabinet said in clear violation of the court order.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak's security cabinet said in a statement that the 13 would go free by Wednesday afternoon. The ministers also decided to initiate legislation that would give the government a legal right to hold Arab resistance fighters as bargaining chips for missing or captured soldiers, the statement said.
Such a law would effectively circumvent the High Court's ruling that only prisoners who posed a security risk to Israel could be locked away in "administrative detention." The ruling, unpopular in Israel, said they could not be held without trial merely to be swapped for Israelis held captive.
Israeli prosecutors, following the High Court's lead, told a Tel Aviv district court on Tuesday that Obeid and Dirani -- seized to be used as bargaining chips for missing Israeli airman Ron Arad -- were in effect "dangerous to national security."
The district court said it would convene again on 8 May to hear arguments on extending the guerrilla officials' detention under the new security risk category. Until then, prosecutors said, Obeid and Dirani will remain in jail.
