JEDDAH: A European country has agreed to consider granting a Saudi held in an Israeli prison political asylum as a way of getting him back home, a lawyer representing the man told Arab News yesterday.
“A UN representative informed the Tel Aviv Central Court yesterday that a northwestern European country had agreed to consider granting (Abdul Rahman) Al-Atwi political asylum,” said lawyer Buthaina Duqmaq, founder and director of the Mandela Institute for Human Rights and Political Prisoners.
Duqmaq declined to name the country, but said a representative from that country would be in Tel Aviv on March 30 to meet with Al-Atwi and Israeli officials.
Al-Atwi, a 38-year-old resident of Tabuk, has been in a Tel Aviv prison for four years after being sentenced to three months in jail from March 5, 2005, for straying into Israel from a remote location between Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Israel’s southern Negev region.
Al-Atwi claimed he was hiking on a desert trek when he climbed a fence he didn’t realize was an international border.
After completing his jail sentence in June 2005, Al-Atwi entered diplomatic limbo because Israel and Saudi Arabia lack any formal channels for deportation proceedings.
Five countries — Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Finland and Sweden — have declined to act as intermediaries.
Mufleh Al-Qahtani, vice president of the Saudi National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), told Arab News that his organization sent a letter two years ago to the Saudi Embassy in Egypt inquiring about Egypt’s refusal to receive Al-Atwi so he can return home. The NSHR never received a reply.
“We are preparing a second letter to send to the embassy,” he added.
Saudi Embassy representatives in Cairo did not return calls inquiring about the matter.
The court yesterday postponed for two weeks a hearing about whether Al-Atwi should be allowed to wait for his deportation outside of jail.
Israeli state prosecutors are arguing that his imprisonment should continue for not cooperating with UN representatives involved in the case. Duqmaq denies the prosecution’s allegations.
“The UN representative submitted to the court details of the six meetings held with Al-Atwi,” she said.
Eissa Qaraqie, president of the Political Prisoners Committee at the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the Palestinian government is welcome to accept and host any Arab prisoner. However, he said that Israel selects which and how many prisoners are released and that the Palestinian Authority has no influence in such matters.
The Red Cross is following the case closely,” said Red Cross spokesperson in Jerusalem Nadiah Dibsi. She refused to comment on reasons behind the five countries’ refusal to facilitate Al-Atwi’s return home.
— with input by Mohammed Mar’i in Ramallah
