Hamas militant given 46 life sentences for suicide attacks
Palestine, Local, 7/10/1997

An Israeli military court on July 7 handed down 46 life sentences to a Palestinian militant convicted of planning three suicide bombings in Israel last year.

Hassan Salameh, 26, a member of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, was convicted on June 30 of planning attacks in February and March last year which left 46 people dead and helped derail the Middle East peace process.

Military prosecutors had demanded 46 life sentences, as only those convicted of Nazi war crimes can face the death penalty in the Jewish state.

One judge had nevertheless pleaded in favor of capital punishment, but he was overruled by his two colleagues, court sources said.

"The murderous acts. . . were carried out after the peace process began in our region. The accused carried out his acts not in order to protect the rights of Palestinians, as he said, but instead to ruin the process," said Coll Ilan Katz, one of the judges, reading the court's ruling.

The judge said the ruling was a message to "those who follow him and try to stop the process of reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians by means of torn corpses that they will stay in jail until their last day."

Salameh, from Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, was sporting a brown shirt and a neatly-trimmed beard as he was brought manacled into court. He smiled briefly at journalists, but stood impassively looking at the judges as the sentence was read out.

Meanwhile, Hamas on July 7 called for Arab countries to launch a new holy war against Israel "to liberate Palestine and the holy places" following the discovery of defaced copies of the Koran.

Five copies of the Koran were found torn and spattered with paint at a school in Hebron over the weekend following a raid by Israeli soldiers. Both the Israeli army and the 400-strong community of Jewish settlers in Hebron denied responsibility.

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