The Nazareth Central Court sentenced, on Wednesday morning, Ghassan Mohammad Athamla, 43, from Al Reina town in the Galilee to six consecutive years after indicting him of “contacting and enemy, and membership in an illegal organization”.
Lawyer Saleem Wakid, who represented Athamla, told the Arabs48 news website that the court indicted Athamla, who headed the Central Committee of the National Democratic Assembly, of assembling with a Jordanian activist, identified as Ibrahim Ajwa, in 2002, and toured Al Baq’a refugee camp in Jordan, along with Ajwa.
Ajwa is a member of Fateh-Intifada organization, which split from the Fateh movement.
The Israeli prosecution claims that Ghassan met with Ajwa two times in Jordan in 2003.
Also, the Israeli prosecution charged that Athamla held talks with the Lebanon based Hezbollah party, recruited his brother Sahran, 23, to the party, and dispatched him to Turkey in order to meet with “Abu Wael”, a member of Hezbollah party.
“Sahran traveled to Turkey in December 2003, remained there for three weeks and met Abu Wael to discuss financing operations in Israel”, the prosecution claims, “He also prepared lists of suggested members to be sent for military training and receive combat tools”.
According to the indictment, Sahran received training on the usage of arms, and learnt techniques in preparing explosives, in addition to learning techniques of avoiding security surveillance.
“Sarhan also asked Hezbollah to finance operations in Israel, and asked the party to provide him with combat tools in order to train local members of the organization”, the prosecution claims.
The Israel security demanded Sarhan to provide them with names of possible locations which could be potential targets for bombings.
Sarhan was sentenced last September to six consecutive years.
