High Court Orders Government to Answer Appeal Against Deportation of Three West Bank Officials

Supreme Court Justice Moshe Baisky ordered the government today to answer on appeal against the deportation of three West Bank political leaders in the aftermath of the May 2 terrorist killings of six yeshiva students in Hebron. Baisky referred the appeal to a panel of three high court justices. The government’s code will be presented by a representative of the Attorney General.

The appeal was filed by the wives of two of the deportees, Mayor Mohammed Milhim of Halhoul and Mayor Fahed Kawasme of Hebron, and by a cousin of the third, Sheikh Rajeb Buyud Tamimi, the Kadi (Moslem religious judge) of Hebron. It contends that the Military Government deprived the three of their legal rights by arresting them without explanation and conducting them across the border without permitting them to exercise their right of appeal before the appeals committee of the Military Government. Such a committee reversed the deportation order against Mayor Bassam Shoaka of Nablus last year.

The appeal also stated that the deportations violated international law and were an act of revenge against innocent people. Milhim, Kawasme and Tamimi were ordered out of the country on grounds that their provocative anti-Israel statements incited disorder and established the atmosphere in which the Hebron murders occurred.