PA Sentences Another “Collaborator” To Death
ICEJ NEWS – 08/22/2001
Amid approving shouts from spectators, a Palestinian Authority security court in Gaza this week sentenced to death a 24-year-old half-retarded Arab man for suspected “collaboration” with Israel.
The condemned man, Khaled al-Oukka, simply smiled as the sentence of death by firing squad was read out, a reaction his father said was due to his retardation. He joins at least six other recently convicted “informers” on death row. At least seven more alleged spies have been slain by vigilante groups in recent weeks, including the body of one found in a garbage dump in the Bethlehem area this past weekend with three shots in his head.
About 100 additional suspects are in PA jails awaiting trial, many of them undergoing torture. Last week in Gaza, Suleiman Abu Amra died from beatings while in Palestinian police custody, but PLO chief Yasser Arafat later acknowledged he was innocent.
On Arafat’s orders, the PA publicly executed two Arab “informers” last January, while reports from around that same time indicated several others may have been quietly killed by the PA. An estimated 30 suspected collaborators have been killed in vigilante attacks since the start of the 11-month-old intifada.
Used with Permission from International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.