A court has sentenced an aide to West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, himself on trial in another court on terrorism charges, to life in prison, sources said on Monday . Nasser Awis - accused of being a commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed Fatah offshoot - was handed down 14 life sentences, plus an additional 50 years for having planned, bankrolled and commanded attacks which killed 14 Israelis and wounded dozens.
| Nasser Awis is apparently a different fellow from Nasser Awais, an al-Aqsa commander who departed this vale of tears April a year ago when his boom belt went off prematurely. Either that, or Nasser's a really resilient fellow... |
Barghouti, 43, a member of the Palestinian parliament and chief of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah in the West Bank, was also facing the last day on Monday of witness hearings in another court in Tel Aviv. Once tipped as a potential successor to Arafat, he was arrested during an Israeli invasion of Ramallah in April 2002 and charged with heading the Al-Aqsa faction, a charge he denied. He has refused to ackowledge the court's jurisdiction to try him. |