Palestinian officer jailed for criticizing Abbas

By Anees Barghouti

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) - A Palestinian military court slapped a military officer Wednesday with a one-year jail term for criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ participation at the funeral of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres last month, according to the officer's lawyer.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Osama Mansour was sentenced to one year in prison and dismissed from service," lawyer Ghandi Amin told Anadolu Agency.

The court, the lawyer said, had charged Mansour with "disobeying orders" by expressing his political opinion.

"This verdict was unexpected," Amin said. "We hope President Abbas will consider pardoning Lieutenant Mansour."

Earlier this month, Palestinian security forces detained Mansour after he called on Abbas in a Facebook post to refrain from attending Peres’ funeral, which was held in Jerusalem on Sept. 30.

In the 1930s, Peres had been a member of the Haganah, an armed Jewish gang that carried out numerous attacks on Palestinians after the withdrawal of British forces from Palestine in 1948.

Peres received the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize -- along with late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat -- for his role in peace talks that eventually yielded the Oslo Accords.

Nevertheless, Peres has been accused of committing numerous crimes in the region, including the shelling of the southern Lebanese village of Qana in 1996 -- when he served as Israel’s prime minister -- in which 106 civilians were killed.