JERUSALEM (AP) – An Israeli military court sentenced a leading Palestinian lawmaker to two years in prison in a deal that convicted her of belonging to an illegal group. But the court did not find enough evidence to present more serious charges against her, the army said on Tuesday.
Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been detained without charge since October 2019. Her sentence will include length of service, which means she will be released in October.
Israel, along with the United States and other Western allies, considers the FPLP to be a terrorist group.
Jarrar has been in and out of Israeli prison in recent years. She was sentenced to 15 months in 2015 on charges of incitement and PFLP membership. But for much of that time she was held in administrative detention, an Israeli political controversy in which Palestinian suspects can be detained for long periods without charge.
In a statement on Tuesday, the military said Jarrar confessed to having held a position in the 2016 PFLP until his arrest in 2019 and in that role she received unspecified reports and other information.
However, the statement acknowledged that the case suffered from “significant evidence difficulties” and that Jarrar “did not deal with organizational or military aspects of the organization.”
Jarrar’s husband, Ghassan, said the sentence was “an expression of the nature of the occupation of Israel” in the Palestinian territories.
“There are no specific charges against her, except that she was elected to the Legislative Council on a list that Israel rejects,” said Ghassan Jarrar. “It is a political persecution.”