Palestinian security releases Hamas member after 5 years in jail

Palestinian Authority (PA) security services in the West Bank have released Palestinian-Brazilian citizen Islam Hamid after five years in jail, including 102 days of hunger strike, Anadolu and other media sources reported on Tuesday.

Relatives said that Hamid was released in the presence of his mother and wife, as well as the deputy Brazilian consul to the PA.

The PA obliged Hamid to sign a document in which it forgoes responsibility for his security after his release. His wife said that this measure was taken as a result of “false information” that was “dragged” from Hamid while he was in prison and passed to the Israeli occupation.

The spokesman of the PA security services Adnan Al-Dameeri said that Hamid spent his three-year sentence and remained in prison for extra two years to protect him from being arrested by the Israeli occupation.

However, family and Palestinian rights groups said that Hamid was released after 102 days of hunger strike inside PA prisons. He protested against ill-treatment and being incarcerated for no reason.

Hamid, from Silwad Neighbourhood in the east of Ramallah, was arrested by the PA in September 2010. He was sentenced to three years, but the Supreme Palestinian court cleared him after one year.

Hamid was arrested after he was wounded in a fire exchange with an Israeli settler near Ramallah.

His wife said that the PA released her husband after he “became very sick”.