A terrorist gang responsible for a series of bombing incidents in Tel Aviv and other cities dating back to 1969 has been apprehended and has confessed to the crimes, Israeli security authorities disclosed today. The gang was headed by 26-year-old Abdul Malek Dhamshe, a lawyer from Nazareth who graduated from the Hebrew University in 1969 and has made a practice of defending alleged terrorists brought to trial. Three other members of the gang were also identified as Israeli Arabs. The fourth was a resident of Nablus on the West Bank who acted as contact man between the terrorist command and the Israeli-Arab sell. According to the authorities, the accused admitted parking a car loaded with explosives on Keren Kayameth Boulevard near Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv two years ago. The car exploded causing severe damage to nearby buildings but no casualties despite the crowed on the street at the time. About a month after that incident, two explosive charges went off on parking a lot near a Haifa movie house. A year later two more cars filled with dynamite exploded in residential areas of Natanya. Authorities said the gang members admitted responsibility for each bombing.
They said that Dhamshe took over leadership of the El Fatah cell, after its former leader. Sabari Jaris fled to Lebanon. Jaris, also a lawyer, had been practicing in Haifa. The other gang members were identified as Kamel Ibrahim Shahin Kopti, 27, a painter from Kfar Kanna, near Nazareth; Saliman Shakour, also 27, of Nazareth; Abdul Razek Hesham at Buab, a Jaffa restaurant owner who confessed to storing the explosives until there were used; and Mouhamed Ali Khalil Hassan. a Nablus school teacher. Authorities said the latter had a secret cache in his school where large quantities of explosives have since been discovered along with bazookas and bazooka shells, light machineguns and demolition equipment. Dhamshe’s arrest was denounced by the local Communist Party in Nazareth which alleged that he was being punished because he defended terrorists in the Israeli courts and had, on several occasions, accused Israeli authorities of mistreating suspects. Other circles in Nazareth said however that if Dhamshe and his partners are proven guilty they should be punished.
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