Zionist Occupation Authorities Sentence Syrian Freedom Fighter Sidqi al-Maqt to 14 years in Jail

QUNEITRA, (ST)- The Israeli occupation authorities on Tuesday issued a 14 –year sentence against the dean of the Syrian and Arab prisoners in the Israeli jails Sidqi Sleiman al-Maqt for his role in uncovering the Israeli entity’s support for the terrorist organizations in Syria.

Ahmad Sheikh Abdul Qader, Governor of Quneitra,  condemned the occupation’s unfair decision which came after the trial of al-Maqt had been postponed many times.

The unjust ruling against freedom fighter Sidqi al-Maqt aims to punish him for his national stances and for his role in exposing the support of the Israeli occupation for the terrorist organizations in Syria, said the governor. It comes within the framework of the occupation authorities’ persistence in its policy of harassment against the steadfastness of the people of the occupied Syrian Golan who insist on adhering to their lands and to the Syrian Arab identity despite the occupation’s oppression and inhuman practices against them, he added.

 On its part the Committee for Supporting Liberated and Detained Syrian Captives in the Israeli Jails described the verdict as an act of reprisal that is based on no evidence and as  fundamentally politicized and contrary to the basic human rights and rules of international law.

In a statement, the committee urged international human rights organizations to spare no effort as to release all Syrian Golan captives and detained people in the Israeli jails and to force the occupation’s authorities to implement Geneva 4th convention relating to the protection of civilians under occupation. The committee stressed the right of the people of Golan in defending their lands against colonialism in all its forms.

The committee’s statement said that the authorities of the Israeli jails use all means of torture and harassment against the Syrian captives and detainees including turning their bodies into a filed for medical and scientific experiments.

Al-Maqt, a resident and freedom-fighter in the occupied Syrian Golan, is a long-time prisoner in Israeli jails. He was re-detained by the Israeli authorities on February 25th, 2015, after he had already spent 27 years in Israeli prisons and was released in August 2012.

In a letter sent from inside al-Jalboua prison in north of occupied Palestine, al-Maqt defied the Israeli occupation government and its media to dare to publish all the details of the case of his unjust and politicized detention, including the confidential reports and recordings of calls in their possession.

He added that he was sure that the so-called “central court in al-Nasira” would rule an unfair verdict against him with the aim of “preventing me from telling the truth and punishing me for exposing the support provided by the Israeli occupation authorities to the gangs of terrorism and criminality in Syria.”

Hamda Mustafa