ISRAEL INDICTS PALESTINIAN POLICEMAN SEIZED AFTER VANISHING IN EGYPT

Occupied Jerusalem, 12 Ramadham 1434/20 July 2013 (MINA) – A Palestinian secretly held by Israel after he vanished during a visit to Egypt last month was indicted on terrorism charges Friday, though Israeli authorities kept a lid on how and where he was detained.
Any indication that Wael Abu Rida was seized on Egyptian soil, whether by Israeli undercover agents or in cooperation with Cairo, could fan popular hostility toward the Jewish state in the politically chaotic Arab power.

Wael Abu Rida was indicted on terrorism charges Friday, though Israeli authorities kept a lid on how and where he was detained, the Saudi Gazette quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Any indication that Abu Rida was seized by Israeli undercover agents or in cooperation with Cairo. According analyst, this could fan popular hostility toward the Jewish state in the politically chaotic Arab power.

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Israel says it has had Abu Rida, a former policeman from the Gaza Strip, in custody since June 21, roughly a week after his family said he disappeared while seeking medical treatment for his son in Egypt.

A court in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba charged Abu Rida with scores of offenses, including attempted murder, belonging to a terrorist group and liaising with hostile foreign agents, linked to Gaza-based attacks on Israelis.

The indictment, Abu Rida had for a decade been active in Islamic Jihad, a powerful Palestinian faction in Gaza Strip.

Abu Rida’s lawyer, Mohammed Jabarin, indicated that his client would fight the charges.

Abu Rida’s confession to Israeli interrogators, which provided the basis for the indictment, was a “false version of events”, Jabarin told Saudi Gazette source in Beersheba without elaborating.

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Locked in an armed standoff with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Gaza groups, the Israelis have struck both inside the strip and further afield against targets suspected of being part of the supply line for rockets to the Palestinian enclave.

Jabarin and prosecutors at the hearing declined to discuss with the media the circumstances leading to his incarceration, citing a court gag order.

Islamic Jihad denied any connection to Abu Rida and accused Israel of surreptitiously snatching him near Egypt’s Sinai peninsula border with Gaza — an allegation also made by Hamas, though neither faction has provided evidence for it.

“Wael Abu Rida is a Palestinian citizen who was kidnapped by the occupation (Israel) from another country. He had nothing to do with the Islamic Jihad movement and all these accusations are fabrications,” Islamic Jihad official Khader Habib told.

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Abu Rida’s wife Amani, who accompanied him to Egypt, said a friend she did not know had telephoned him to ask him to come to Rafah, a town that straddles the country’s border with Gaza and is located just 7 km from Israeli territory.

But after he left for the rendezvous, Abu Rida’s relatives did not hear from him again.

Some previous cases, Dubai accused Israeli spies of killing a Hamas arms procurer in the Gulf emirate in 2010. The next year, a Gazan engineer was abducted while visiting Ukraine and is now being prosecuted in Israel as a Hamas rocket expert — charges he has denied. (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).