An Israeli military court has ordered Aziz Dweik, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and a senior Hamas member, to be placed under detention without trial for six months, local media reported citing his lawyer late on Tuesday.
Dweik's lawyer Fadi Qawasmi, who was present at the closed-door hearing, later told reporters that the court did not give any specific reason for sentencing his client, who did not have any charges filed against him.
Dweik was arrested at Jaba checkpoint near Ramallah on Thursday last while returning home in the northern West Bank city of Hebron. Although 65-year-old Dweik is a senior member of the radical Islamist group Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip, he lives in the West Bank ruled by the rival Fatah faction.
The PLC has not been functioning ever since Hamas came to power in Gaza in June 2007 ousting the secularist Fatah party led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas. Israel and the West consider Hamas a terrorist organization over its refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel.
Dweik was earlier arrested along with 40 other Hamas parliamentarians by Israel after Hamas fighters abducted Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, in a cross-border raid in June 2006. He was released from prison in 2009 after serving out a three-year sentence.
Shalit was freed from captivity in October last following an Egypt-brokered prisoner exchange deal that saw Israel releasing 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian officials claim that some 6,000 Palestinians are still languishing in Israeli prisons, with most of them being held without charges.
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