Off the wire
• News Analysis: Trump reiterates vow to destroy Islamic State  • Belarus president appoints new administration chief  • Shandong Luneng midfielder Montillo set for Brazil move  • Dubai Duty Free welcomes Chinese travelers  • Children in Norway living below poverty line increases in 2016  • No undermining EU free movement during Brexit negotiations: Lithuanian president  • China Focus: China's in the game for E-sports  • Mandatory drone registration proposed in Britain  • Aleppo int'l airport to return to service soon: official  • Czech Republic to ramp up security during Christmas after Berlin attack  
You are here: 　 Home

Israeli parliamentary committee votes to strip Israeli-Arab lawmaker immunity

Xinhua, December 22, 2016 Adjust font size:

An Israeli parliamentary committee voted on Wednesday to revoke the parliamentary immunity of Israeli-Arab lawmaker Basel Ghattas following accusations that he smuggled mobile phones to Palestinian prisoners.

The move means that the final decision on the case would be brought for voting in the plenum of the parliament, or the Knesset, on Thursday.

The Knesset House Committee unanimously voted in favor of lifting Ghattas' protection from prosecution and arrest. The discussion was held at the request of the Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit.

Deputy Attorney General Raz Nizri said that Ghattas visited the Ktzi'ot prison in southern Israel on Dec. 18 to visit Walid Daka, who serves a life sentence for the murder of an Israeli soldier in 1984, and Basel Basra, in jail for security offenses. Both prisoners are members of the Fatah, the Palestinian ruling party.

Nizri said that based on intelligence, the Attorney General's office authorized the visit to be documented on video, which showed Ghattas giving Basra four envelopes in which a later search found a dozen mini cell phones. He was also shown handing documents to Daka.

Ghattas arrived for a police questioning on Tuesday, during which he said the phones were given to the prisoners for "humanitarian reasons" and the documents contained political materials about Ghattas' party, Balad, said Nizri.

Balad, as an Arab-Palestinian nationalist party, has frequent confrontations with the government.

The maximum penalty for smuggling equipment to prisoners is five years, and up to 10 years if the smuggling was done in order to undermine national security, Nizri added.

Security Palestinian prisoners are not allowed to make phone calls to their families. Vacations to visit home are prohibited, and family visits are often not possible as most of the Palestinians do not hold entry permits to Israel.

Israel's Arab minority makes up about a fifth of the Israeli population. Arab citizens of Israel are Palestinians who stayed put during Israel's 1948 Independence War. Endit