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Fatah says Israel wants to slowly finish off Barghuti
(AFP), Khaleej Times, 26 February 2003

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RAMALLAH - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement accused Israel of wanting to “slowly liquidate” its jailed West Bank leader Marwan Barghuti, in a statement received by AFP on Wednesday.

“Israel could not directly assassinate him and is now trying to slowly liquidate him,” the statement charged, warning Israel that ”its crimes” would not go unpunished.

 Barghuti, 44, narrowly escaped death in August 2001 when two Israeli missiles were fired at a convoy of cars he was travelling in, although Israel said it was trying to kill one of his entourage and not the Fatah chief himself.

 The Fatah statement said Barghuti’s detention in solitary confinement was “threatening his life”, stressing his health “is deteriorating”.

 “Based on our information, the state of our brother’s health, the freedom fighter and Fatah high council secretary general Marwan Barghuti, is deteriorating,” the statement said.

 His wife Fadwa told AFP her husband’s “lawyer visited him two days ago and informed me that he is suffering from chest pains and has difficulties breathing, and that the prison authorities had not sent for a doctor.”

 “He’s in an underground room no larger than three square metres and only two metres (6.6 feet) high, without any air or light,” she said.

 Barghuti, seen by many as the inspiration behind the Palestinian uprising and as a possible successor to Arafat, was arrested by the Israeli army in April 2002 and brought before an Israeli court in September.

 He faces various counts of murder and heading a terrorist organisation, and was moved to a prison in southern Israel and placed in solitary confinement in early January.

 One of his lawyers then charged that Barghuti’s life was threatened in the Ramla prison which he said is known for its harsh detention conditions.


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