An Israeli court extended Wednesday by almost six months the detention of two Lebanese leaders captured in Lebanon by Israeli commandos, reported the Daily Star newspaper.
The Tel Aviv court gave orders for Sheikh Abdel-Karim Obeid, a senior Hizbollah official, and Mustafa Dirani, the head of the Believers’ Resistance, to be kept in detention until December 17, 2001 and banned any publication of the motives for its decision.
Obeid and Dirani were captured in 1989 and 1994, respectively.
“The extension of the detention means that, regardless of the law, the court considers the two men as a bargaining chips” for the restitution, dead or alive, of Israelis who were captured in Lebanon, the two prisoners’ lawyer, Tzvi Rich, told AFP.
In April 2000, Israel’s supreme court ordered the release of 13 other Lebanese administrative detainees, judging as contrary to human rights their detention against news or the release of three Israeli soldiers who went missing in Lebanon in 1982 and pilot Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 – Albawaba.com
