Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - On 4 November, the Israeli authorities will proceed with the release of Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Allan, allaying fears of a further extension of the period of arbitrary detention.
Palestinian Maan News Agency reported the announcement made by the team of lawyers defending the 31 year old prisoner who had spent nearly a year in prison in Israel. On 18 September, the man had suspended his hunger strike, the second in a few weeks, after consultation with his legal counsel.
Yesterday Jawad Boulos, leader of the Palestinian Prisoner's Society, visited Allan in Ramla prison hospital and confirmed that the Israeli court has ordered the release at the end of the six-month administrative detention, which will expire in early November. The young man is still undergoing medical treatment and continues to suffer from severe episodes of nausea.
Mohammed Allan, 31, spent several days in intensive care at the hospital in Barzelai. On his admission, the Israeli authorities stopped the regime of administrative detention, which allows suspects to be detained without trial for long periods - renewable every six months - even without specific allegations.
Authorities arrested him in November 2014 on charges of belonging to the extremist group Islamic Jihad; claiming his innocence, the man since last June refused to feed and his condition soon deteriorated. Israel had proposed early November as his release date, in exchange for his interruption of the hunger strike.
The Israeli Ministry of Justice accuses Allan of involvement in "serious acts of terrorism." Citing "top secret" information, the authorities insist that the man is dangerous and therefore must be kept in detention.
Last July Israel passed a law that provides for the force-feeding of prisoners who adopt the hunger strike as a form of protest against their imprisonment.