By Mohammad Baali
Albawaba.com - Cairo
In a popular trial of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the prosecution asked a three-judge panel to sentence the hawkish Israeli leader to death on charges of war crimes against Arabs.
The panel decided to adjourn the trial without specifying a date for the next session.
The postponement decision was taken, according to the court, due to the involuntary absence of two plaintiffs: the parents of two Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in the Intifada: Mohammad Durra and Eman Hijjo. The parents were barred by the Israeli authorities to cross the border to Egypt, according to the trial coordinator and famous Islamist lawyer, Muntasser Zayyat.
Besides, no lawyer agreed to represent the defendant.
Sharon was indicted of direct and indirect involvement in war crimes, including the killing of civilians and POWs.
Representing the Arab peoples, the lawyer and MP Adel Eid described Sharon as a thug whose crimes were committed “with cowardice and meanness,” with many perpetrated out of the battlefield.
Sharon was accused of murdering a Palestinian child in 1944, and of responsibility for a series of massacres against civilians in 1948, 52, 53, 56, 82 and 2001.
Prosecutor Nabil Hilali elaborated, for his turn, on Sharon’s alleged involvement in killing Egyptian POWs in the 1956 and 1967 Arab Israeli wars.
The court was presided by Sameh Ashour, chief of Arab and Egyptian bar associations, with former head of Cairo’s lawyers union, Farouq Abu Eissa, and the Saudi lawyer Mohammad Said Tayyeb as members.
Among the plaintiffs who attended the hearing were the famous POW Mahmoud Sawarkeh, who was apprehended in Sinai in 1977 and spent 20 years in Israeli prisons, and the commander of the popular resistance in Suez in 1973, Hafez Salamah – Albawaba.com
