A Tel Aviv district court imposed a 15-month prison sentence today on Sami Esmail, an American Arab convicted last week of membership in a terrorist organization. He was acquitted of charges of maintaining contact with enemy agents.
The court emphasized that the defendant was not being punished for his political views but for deeds which included a period of training in Libya for terrorist acts on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The court noted that while Esmail never participated in any action against Israel, the fact that he was trained in the use of arms and explosives by a hostile organization was a serious offense.
Esmail, 24, an American citizen, was detained last December when he visited Israel to be with his father who was dying at EI Bireh, a West Bank village near Ramallah. He confessed to training in Libya. The seven months he spent in jail awaiting trial will be deducted from his sentence, subject to good behavior, and he is expected to be allowed to return to the U.S. before the end of the year.
(In Washington, meanwhile, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign presented an appeal for clemency on Esmail’s behalf to Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz and to Patricia Derian, human rights officer at the State Department. It was signed by 58 prominent academicians, religious and civil liberties figures.)
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