The Supreme Court ended hearings Friday on the appeal of three West Bank political leaders against their deportation. A decision is expected within a week or so on the demand of Fahed Kawasme, Mohammed Milhim and Sheikh Rajeb Buyud Tamimi against their continued expulsion. Kawasme, who was the mayor of Hebron, Milhim, who was the mayor of Halhoul, and Tamimi, who was the Moslem religious judge of Hebron, were deported in the aftermath of the May 2 terrorist killings of six yeshiva students in Hebron.
Friday’s court session focussed on the political beliefs of the three men — whether they favored the destruction of the State of Israel. State Attorney Gavriel Bach cited precedents to show that persons favoring the dismantling of the State cannot benefit from the remedies of its courts.
Bach produced affidavit from a Military Government officer attesting that the three men had participated in a demonstration at the Jordan Bridge last Wednesday and shouted slogans such as “Israel is Nazi” and “the land will be redeemed with blood.” The lawyer for the appellants, Felicia Longer, claimed that while the three had been present at the demonstration marking Nablus Mayor Bassam Shaka’s return they had been silent and not shouted any slogans.
She argued that all the West Bank mayors and most of the inhabitants saw the Palestine Liberation Organization as their legitimate representative — and thus it could not be expected of the three to dissociate themselves from the PLO. She asserted, though, that the three had said and written that they favored a peaceful solution.
A main issue in the case is whether the deportees were entitled to appeal before a special tribunal against their deportation before it was carried out. Bach, for the State, said earlier in the hearing that though the action of the military authorities in not permitting the appeal to be heard before the expulsion was “irregular” and therefore improper, it did not, in strictly legal terms, invalidate the legality of the deportation.
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