Hamas leaders in food strike

The defendant for the detainees of the Islamic resistance movement "Hamas" Saleh al-Armouti said on Sunday that its political office chairman Khaled Mashaal and its spokesman Ibrahim Ghoushe and four of their escorts who were arrested on September 22 started on Saturday an open food strike in al-Jweida prison, South Amman in protest of the slow measures taken by the Jordanian government in settling their question through a political understanding or judicial court.

Al-Armouti told the Lebanese daily al-Nahar that the six detainees refused since Saturday morning from taking food and they are live on water, except Ghoshe who takes medicine for the " high blood pressure’.

Al-Armouti added that the said men resorted to this method after their patient has expired in the way the government deals with their case following 25 days of suspension. He quoted Mashaal as saying that this period is enough to settle this matter in the course of a settlement with the government or bringing them before the state court.