A military tribunal, which sentenced an Arab engineer from Nablus to eight years imprisonment for being a member of the Jordanian Communist Party’s military arm, was shocked to learn that the Soviet Union is aiding terrorists by maintaining a training base for persons from a number of West Bank towns, including Judea and Samaria, who visit the USSR.
Mouhammed Yassin, the engineer, related to the tribunal that he went to Moscow to study philosophy but found himself in a Russian training base where he was taught to treat wounded, use Kalachnikoff rifles, and assemble and dismantle bombs, and also how to prevent the dispersion of demonstrations by police, It was learned that the terrorists arrive in the Soviet Union without having their passports checked or stamped and stay in the USSR with Russian identity cards bearing false names.
In issuing the sentence the court stated: “We are faced with the beginning of the organization of a new illegal group, the Palestine Popular Front, which has its axis in Nablus-Amman-Damascus-Moscow.” The court noted that Yassin expressed no regret for his actions and, therefore, no leniency could be extended.
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