Israeli court sentenced one Syrian Golanese

An Israeli court on Sunday sentenced the Syrian citizen Wiam Amasha, of the occupied Syrian Golan village of Baqa'atha, to 20 years in prison on charges of resisting the occupation.

Prisoner Amasha received the sentence with great courage and told the judge and the people in the court that this trial is illegitimate. He stressed that his case is a national and political one, and the occupation has no validity to try nationalists who defend their nation or struggle for the liberation of their people.

The trial lasted only for five minutes during which the judge hurriedly read the 20-year-imprisonment verdict.

The father of the Syrian prisoner said in reaction to the "unfair" sentence that "we didn't expect less than this sentence after those lengthy series of court hearings and threats announced by representatives of the Israeli intelligence agencies." The father also emphasized that "such sentences cannot scare us ... and would never deter us ... we will continue the struggle, and this is a message to the Israelis that our people in the Golan will not abandon their hopes or aspirations in returning to the motherland Syria whatever the occupation lasts."

He added that "we don't give any attention to such sentences which represent injustice and flagrant violation of the international laws." The Syrian prisoner Amasha has been in prison for five years. He was also kept in detention for almost one year after the end of his previous prison term where Israeli occupation authorities accused him of organizing a resistance cell against the occupation inside his prison.