RIYADH (MEMO) – A Saudi court has reduced the jail term of Palestinian inmate Mohammad al-Khodari from 15 to three years, the Jordanian Detainees Committee in Saudi Arabia reported.
“The court has begun to look into the sentences issued against 60 Jordanians and Palestinians working in Saudi Arabia on charges of supporting the Palestinian resistance,” the committee said in a statement.
In August, a criminal court sentenced al-Khodari to 15 years in prison alongside with 60 Palestinians and Jordanians detained since February 2019.
The committee said in its statement that the court reduced al-Khodari’s sentence to six years, including three suspended years.
Neither Hamas resistance movement nor the Saudi authorities have commented on the report.
However, Khader Mashayikh, head of the Jordanian committee, described the court verdict as a “positive sign.”
Speaking to Anadolu news agency, Mashayikh said al-Khodari is expected to be released from Saudi prisons in January 2022 as he would have completed three years in prison.
Earlier this year, the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement and the Islamic Jihad vehemently condemned Saudi Arabia’s long prison terms handed down to dozens of Palestinians jailed in the kingdom’s prisons, noting that the verdicts were part of Riyadh’s efforts to curry favor with the Zionist regime.
In March last year, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau, in a letter addressed to the Saudi monarch pleaded with him to make a quick decision and order the freedom of dozens of Palestinian detainees who are languishing in Saudi prisons.
Palestinian families and human rights groups also called on Saudi authorities to immediately release the Palestinians, citing the threat posed by the spread of COVID-19.
Families of the detainees, some of whom are in their 80s, say the Palestinians have been denied access to lawyers and visitation rights, and authorities have recently begun reducing phone call access.