Israel acknowledges inciting Austria against Palestinian asylum seeker

Israel acknowledged on Monday that it was behind the imprisonment of a Palestinian asylum seeker in Austria, Shehab.ps has reported. Abdul Karim Abu Habel was sentenced to life in prison last week by an Austrian court, apparently after evidence was provided by Israel. He was found guilty of being a member of the Palestinian Hamas movement and plotting attacks against Israel.

According to the Israeli Public Prosecutors, the Austrians depended on information regarding Abu Habel’s case supplied by Israel’s Shabak internal security agency. His family deny that he is affiliated to any Palestinian faction, and pointed out that he has already served nine years in an Israel prison on the same charge, having been arrested in 2004 when he was just 14 years old. Abu Habel, they said, travelled abroad seeking work to be able to look after his wife and children.

Read: Austrian court sentences Palestinian asylum seeker to life imprisonment

The young man’s family also explained that the people who he is alleged to have “incited” to carry out attacks against Israel are already behind bars in the Zionist state. “How could he contact them if they are in prison already?” they asked. “What could they do if they are already locked up?”

The PLO’s Prisoners and Freed Prisoners’ Committee rejected the “oppressive” and “arbitrary” sentence passed against Abu Habel. It was imposed, it said, as a result of Israeli incitement against the young Palestinian. The committee noted that such incitement is common against freed prisoners. “Abu Habel,” said committee chair Issa Qarage, “did not commit any crime which warranted such a sentence.”