JEDDAH: On March 5 Saudi national Abdul Rahman Al-Atwi completed his fourth anniversary locked behind bars in an Israeli jail.
"I want to leave Israel," he told his lawyer Buthaina Duqmaq, founder and director of the Mandela Institute for Human Rights and Political Prisoners in Ramallah. "I don't care where - anywhere out of here."
Al-Atwi was not convicted for plotting attacks or cavorting with terrorists. An avid outdoorsman, Al-Atwi was on a hiking trip in a remote part of the Sinai Peninsula. He climbed a low fence, but - because there were no signs in this remote part of the world - he didn't realize it was an international boundary separating Egypt's Sinai from Israel's Negev.
After his arrest, an Israeli court sentenced him in 2005 to three months in jail for illegally crossing into Israel. He's been there for over four years because Israel and Saudi Arabia lack the diplomatic relations that would facilitate deportation, and no country has stepped up to be the intermediary in such an exchange.
On Wednesday, Al-Atwi will appear before an Israeli court in Tel Aviv.
"The judge had requested prosecution to submit a copy of inquires made by UN representatives that Al-Atwi allegedly failed to cooperate with," said Duqmaq in a phone conversation with Arab News yesterday.
A court had issued a verdict on October demanding him released unless the Israeli Interior Ministry had good reasons to further detain him. The state prosecutors want him to remain in jail rather than be released while his repatriation is being worked out.
In response, a month later, the Interior Ministry claimed that he had not cooperated with UN representatives. An allegation he strongly denies.
"Those questions will be asked to Al-Atwi directly by the judge on Wednesday," Duqmaq said, adding that she wasn't sure if the hearing would be open to the public or not.
On Feb 8 a judge had requested prosecution that UN representative provide details regarding Al-Atwi's alleged intransigence with UN officials. The court case was postponed twice, the first time because the UN representative involved in the case was not in the country at the time. The second postponement was because the prosecution lawyer's personal circumstance (his wife had given birth) and because the prosecution said the UN representatives requested more time to prepare for the hearing, said Duqmaq.
Al-Atwi was initially to be handed to a third country after he completed his three-month jail sentence so he could be sent back to Saudi Arabia. However, UN efforts to hand Al-Atwi to a third party have been unsuccessful. Five countries - Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Finland and Sweden - have declined to get involved.
