CAIRO, March 18, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – British lawyers representing Ahmad Saadat are considering to sue the Foreign Office over its decision to withdraw monitors from a West Bank jail minutes before Israeli troops stormed the compound and detained the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The lawyers are building their case, if it went ahead, on Article Five of the European Convention of Human Rights, which deals with the proper treatment of prisoners in detention as the British government knew of the dangers facing Saadat if the monitors left, The Independent reported on Saturday, March 18.
Citing Saadat, Daniel Machover, of the London solicitors Hickman and Rose, said the monitors had indicated several times in the past that they would withdraw and had made clear that if they did the lives of the prisoners would be at risk.
Two Palestinian security guards were killed and 26 others wounded, five of them critically, when the Israeli occupation forces raided the Areha (Jericho) jail compound on Tuesday, March 14.
Saadat, who surrendered to the Israeli forces after a nine-hour armed siege, will have to give his approval to the lawyers to initiate the case.
The US and Britain withdrew their monitors from the jail just minutes before the Israeli raid, drawing rebuke from the Palestinian Authority, Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference.
Alastair Crooke, a former British intelligence officer, said on Wednesday, March 15, that Britain can no longer be considered an honest peace broker in the eyes of the Palestinians after the Israeli assault.
Experts have said that the reputation of Britain in the Arab world has hit an all-time low.
Saadat has been in the jail compound since 2000 despite a Palestinian High Court decision ordering his release.
He along with five others, accused by Israel of involvement in killing its tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi, were placed under foreign watch in the Palestinian prison according to an agreement that ended the Israeli siege of the headquarters of late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, who refused to hand Saadat over to Israel.
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