The Execution of Palestinians–Another Reason for Palestinian Anguish

Since their establishment in 1994, Palestinian courts have handed down 73 death sentences.

Despite the Moratorium on the death penalty signed by Yasser Arafat, executions continue, and under dubious circumstances.

While the PNA is not yet a fully functioning state, it is disheartening to see that the use of lethal force is among the first functions of statehood to be implemented, before development projects and empowerment of the society are established.By Samah Jabr

The July 27 execution of Raed Khalil Al Mughrabi, convicted of the 2001 killing of accountant Khalil Zmullt, marks the 13th official Palestinian execution since 1994. Even though President Yasser Arafat agreed to a moratorium on the death penalty in 2002, nine sentenced prisoners have been killed extrajudicially, during Israeli invasions of the Palestinian territories, by gunmen who attacked prisons and courthouses. Since their establishment in 1994, Palestinian courts have handed down 73 death sentences.

On June 12 of this year, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) executed four Palestinian prisoners convicted of committing murder and other crimes between 1995 and 2000. The executions took place at dawn, with no prior notice, in Gaza City's police compound (al-Jawazat) and main security compound (Sariya).

Those executed were: Mohammed Daoud al-Khawaja, 24, sentenced to death by the Higher State Security Court in 2000 for the murder of Mustafa Baroud. He was executed by firing squad in al-Jawazat compound. Wa'el Sha'ban al-Shoubaki, 33, was sentenced to death in 1996 by the Gaza Central Court after having been convicted of murdering Suhail al-Sayed. In 1995 the court sentenced ‘Ouda Mohammed Abu ‘Azab, 31, to death for kidnapping and murder. Salah Khalil Musallam, 27, was sentenced to death by a criminal court in 1996 after having been convicted of murder and robbery. These three men were hanged in the Sariya compound.

All four, it will be noted, were very young when they committed their crimes. Moreover, after allowing them to lanquish in prison for several years without any legal proceeding, the PNA suddenly and summarily executed them.

The June 12 executions took place during a period of general disintegration of law and order in Gaza and the West Bank, and a dramatic increase in crime reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Interior. But the reason President Mahmoud Abbas decided to proceed with the executions at this particular moment is of more than passing interest—and has precious little to do with genuine due process.

Muhammad Khawaja was the only one of the four who was tried before a State Security Court. While the others were hanged, he met his death facing a firing squad of four masked security officers–the method of executing collaborators. While a Palestinian Internal Ministry spokesman said Khawaja was suspected of collaboration, he in fact was convicted of the hijacking and killing of the money changer Baroud, and the theft of 15,000 Jordanian dinars from him. (Baroud's son, by the way, was allowed to attend Khawaja's execution.) Khawaja's death sentence was intended to show Palestinians that Israeli collaborators are not above execution.

It was on Feb. 17 that the Israeli media first reported that Abbas had approved the execution of three "collaborators" charged with treason. By the second week of March, news stories spoke of 15 “collaborators” to be executed. Time passed, but no executions took place. In March, unofficial news reports said that President Abbas had suspended the death sentences after they created a stir in the European Union, an important donor to the Palestinian government.

Following Abbas' visit to Washington, Israeli sources claimed that Israel released 400 Palestinian prisoners only after it received assurances from the PNA that the collaborators would not be executed. An Israeli citizen even petitioned the Israeli High Court to order the government to apply diplomatic and, if necessary, military pressure on the PNA to head off the execution of Palestinian "informers." The court rejected the petition, according to press reports, after being informed by the state prosecutor's office that Palestinian authorities had told Israel the sentences would not be carried out.

Prior to the execution of the four condemned men, Abbas turned their dossiers over to Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the mufti of Jerusalem, who approved the sentences as religiously valid. Abbas then affixed his signature to some or all of the death warrants. This sequence of events might lead some to the mistaken belief that the men were executed in accordance with Islamic law, and that that law is being applied in Palestine. However, not only is there a lengthy theological argument against the validity of applying Islamic punishment in a state that lacks all Islamic welfare and rights, but, had any of the executed men been a Christian Palestinian, this would have been seen as a grave political error and caused great turmoil.

Ten days after the four Palestinians were executed, President Abbas instructed Minster of Justice Farid al-Jallad to retry before civil courts those who had been sentenced to death by State Security Courts–many of them for treason–to ensure fair and transparent trials in accordance with the civil law. In 2002 there were some 200 Palestinians accused of treason being held in PNA prisons in the Gaza Strip. Where have they gone? We do not know.

Is Treason Relative?

Palestinians accused of treason generally are those who have cooperated with Israeli authorities to locate, help capture or kill wanted resistance fighters. This definition of treason now seems to be relative, however, because these days it is the Palestinian Authority itself which is supposed to be locating, imprisoning and, presumably, trying resistance men, and perhaps killing them as well.

Whether one is for or against the death penalty, to the resistance groups–and, indeed, to the vast majority of the Palestinian people–the issue of national treason is most urgent. It brooks no international interference, and must be taken extremely seriously–and within the boundaries of PNA legal processes.

The death penalty dates back to the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Revolutionary Penal Law of 1979. Prior to his 2002 moritorium on the death penalty, PNA President Arafat established the State Security Courts system on Feb. 7, 1995, on the basis of Order No. 55, issued in 1964 by the Gaza Strip's Egyptian governor general, who in turn relied upon the British emergency laws of 1945. Given that the majority of Palestinian death sentences have been issued by the State Security Court, one can argue that it is based on British, not Palestinian, legal precedent.

The Security Court, moreover, tries crimes which are sent to it by the PNA president. Each case is heard in secret by a civil chairman and two military judges, whose decision is subject to the ratification of the PNA president. Thus the president has the authority to commute or annul the sentence.

Civil society organizations have accused State Security Courts of being neither constitutional nor part of the legal system in effect in occupied Palestine. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (see box), "security officers act as judges, trials are summary and do not allow time for defense cases to be formed and verdicts and sentences delivered are not subject to appeal." The State Security Court also has been consistently criticized by international human rights organizations. Amnesty International frequently has expressed concern about trial proceedings that failed to comply with international trial standards, as well as arbitrary detentions and torture by PNA security forces and other abuses.

After many calls for retrying before civil courts those who were sentenced by State Security Courts, Palestinian Minster of Justice – Abdul Karim Abu Salah issued a decision in 2003 abolishing the operations of the State Security Courts and transferring their powers to civil courts. This was in conformance with Arafat's decision to merge state security prosecution with general prosecution. Two months later, however, the State Security Court in Gaza City held a session presided over by Judge ‘Abdul –Aziz Wadi to consider two cases which should have fallen under the authority of the civil courts.

All the men who were recently executed were convicted of criminal offenses rather than of collaborating with Israeli occupation forces, for which a number of people have been sentenced to death. The criteria used to select those particular prisoners for execution among all those sentenced to death are not known.

While the PNA is not yet a fully functioning state, it is disheartening to see that the use of lethal force is among the first functions of statehood to be implemented, before development projects and empowerment of the society are established.

Even in well-established countries that do not suffer the additional problems arising from occupation, execution has been proven not to deter crimes. Rather, it simply brutalizes society, causes anguish for the relatives of those who are put to death and reinforces a cycle of revenge.

In order to fight crime effectively the PNA must take concrete measures to ensure that its institutions–notably the security forces and the justice system–attain the required levels of competence and independence. We need an effective, solid and transparent legal system that restores peace and security to citizens; a coherent rather than selective system that precludes exemptions based on time, place or person; a humane system that takes into consideration the sociological and psychological damage left by the long years of occupation, and the ill-treatment and torture Israeli forces inflict on young Palestinian prisoners in order to trap them in the mud of treason.

Now is not the time to reach a final decision on those who have been sentenced to death and have been imprisoned for years on death rows. As a nation-in-the-making, it is imperative that, from the outset, we conform to democratic principles and function under the rule of law. Democracy, after all, is about more than elections and a legislative body–it concerns the value of human life, protection of civil liberties and genuine due process. Without these, Palestinian democracy will be but a soulless, empty shell.

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Samah Jabr, a native Jerusalemite, is a physician currently studying in France.