JEDDAH: A Tel Aviv court has refused once again to release a Saudi national imprisoned in Israel, claiming he has failed to cooperate with representatives of the United Nations and has not given a clear answer on why he crossed into Israel from Egypt.
According to a statement sent to Arab News yesterday by the Mandela Institute for Human Rights and Political Prisoners, the Tel Aviv Central Court ruled in favor of the Israeli State Prosecution to continue detaining Abdulrahman Al-Atwi until a country with diplomatic ties with Israel accepts him.
The areas in which Al-Atwi apparently failed to cooperate were not disclosed. Al-Atwi, 38, is from the northern Saudi city of Tabuk. Al-Atwi, whose family described him as an outdoorsman, says he was out hiking on a desert trek in Egypt when he climbed a fence not realizing he had crossed into Israel.
“It is clear that the court has no intention of releasing him,” said the Mandela Institute for Human Rights and Political Prisoners, which is representing Al-Atwi.
Suni Khori, lawyer from the institute, has now filed an appeal. A Tel Aviv court sentenced Al-Atwi to three months in jail in 2005, for illegally straying into Israel’s Negev region from a remote location Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
After completing his term in June 2005, Al-Atwi entered a diplomatic limbo, as there are no formal channels between Israel and Saudi Arabia to begin deportation proceedings.
Five countries — Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Finland and Sweden — have declined to act as intermediaries. The embassies of Finland, Sweden and Turkey have yet to reply to Arab News’ inquires into the matter. The Saudi Embassy in Cairo did not return calls.
Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights recently sent a second letter to the Saudi Embassy in Egypt inquiring about Cairo’s refusal to accept Al-Atwi. The first letter, which Arab News holds a copy of, was sent two years ago.
Al-Atwi’s hope of ever reuniting with his family currently lies in the hands of an undisclosed European country currently reviewing his case. The Mandela Institute statement said a representative from the country arrived last week in Israel to review Al-Atwi’s files, along with that of four other prisoners, on the possibility of granting him political asylum. According to the statement, the representative will decide in a few days on whether to grant Al-Atwi political asylum or not.
