WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Two of the four re-arrested Palestinian political prisoners have told their lawyers they are being subjected to physical and mental abuse and torture by Zionist regime interrogators, in the first meeting they had with them since being taken into custody last week.
Lawyers Khaled and Ruslan Mahajneh from the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Commission of Detainees Affairs defense team met separately with Mohammed and Mahmoud al-Ardah on Wednesday, after Zionist spy agencies lifted the ban on the prisoners’ access to their lawyers five days after their re-arrest.
Khaled Mahajneh gave an emotional interview to Palestine TV as he left Jalama Detention Center after seeing his client Mohammed al-Ardah, who he said is being deprived of food, sleep and medical care while enduring intensive rounds of interrogation.
“Mohammed has undergone, and is still undergoing, a very difficult journey of torture,” said Khaled. “Upon his rearrest, Mohammed was taken to the Nazareth interrogation center, where he was interrogated in a very ugly way.
“There were about 20 intelligence interrogators in a very small room who stripped him of all his clothes, including his undergarments, and forced him to remain naked for several hours. They gave him a shawl later to cover his genitals, and then transferred him to Jalama interrogation centre.”
The lawyer said Zionist troops beat Mohammed during his arrest. “His head was beaten to the ground and he is now injured above his right eye. He has not received the medical treatment he needs until this moment. He suffers from cuts and scratches all over his body, due to the escape attempt and the Zionist troops’ manhunt for him and Zakaria Zubaidi.”
Zionist regime authorities announced the rearrest of Mahmoud Abdullah al-Ardah, 46, and Yaqoub Mahmoud Qadri, 49, on the southern outskirts of Nazareth late on Friday. Zakaria Zubeidi, 46 and Mohammed al-Ardah, 39, were arrested nearby early on Saturday, in the Palestinian village of Shibli-Umm al-Ghanam. The four are being held and interrogated in Jalama.
They were among six men – along with Ayham Nayef Kamanji, 35, and Munadel Infaat, 26, whose whereabouts remain unknown – who broke out of the Zionist regime’s Gilboa prison at dawn on September 6.