Former Prisoner of Zion Ida Nudel and activist attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner have sent a letter to visiting U.S. Under-Secretary of State William Burns, urging him to intervene with the leaders of the Palestinian Authority to save the lives of three Arabs who are facing firing squads. The prisoners, Walid Hamdiya, 39, Khaled al-Kidreh, 31 and Akram al-Zatma, 22, were sentenced to death in swift military trials by the Palestinian Security Court in Gaza for "collaborating" with Israel. Two of the convicts were held in prison for five or more years before being suddenly taken from their cells this month for the "trials." Only Yasser Arafat has the authority to approve or commute the executions.
"If the Palestinians understand that the outside world, including the U.S. State Department, is monitoring the manner in which they adjudicate these capital crime proceedings and the death penalties," states the letter, "they will be much more cautious in providing the prisoners their basic civil rights that every human being deserves."
"If the Palestinians understand that the outside world, including the U.S. State Department, is monitoring the manner in which they adjudicate these capital crime proceedings and the death penalties," states the letter, "they will be much more cautious in providing the prisoners their basic civil rights that every human being deserves."