Security officers on trial over death of Hamas suspect

RORY MCCARTHY

BEIT AR-RUSH AL-FAUQA: Palestinian authorities have begun a rare military trial of security officers accused of torturing a Hamas suspect to death at a time of an intensifying crackdown in the West Bank against the Islamist movement.

Haitham Amr, 33, a nurse, was arrested by the Palestinian intelligence services, led by the Fatah political faction, at his home near Hebron in the occupied West Bank in June.

Four days later he was dead, his body showing extensive bruising and swelling, including damage near the kidneys. He had been suspected of membership of the armed wing of Hamas, the rival Palestinian faction.

He was the fourth prisoner to die in Palestinian custody in the West Bank this year. All were suspected of involvement with Hamas but none was ever charged, and apart from Mr Amr's case, there have been no official investigations.

The investigation of Mr Amr's death sheds new light on the often violent internal confrontation in the West Bank between the Fatah-dominated Palestinian security forces and their enemies from Hamas, which won the last Palestinian elections and now rules over Gaza.

Many Hamas supporters have been arrested and some have been killed. Last month the Palestinian President and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, sacked the Hamas-supporting mayor of Qalqilya and his 15-member council. Some Palestinians fear a slide into a police state.

Palestinian human rights groups say the abuse and torture of prisoners by Fatah-led security forces in the West Bank and by Hamas forces in Gaza is all too common. Three detainees have died in Hamas custody in Gaza this year.

The deaths come at a time when a $US161 million ($182 million) US-led effort is under way in the West Bank to train several battalions of the Palestinian national security forces in preparation for possible future statehood.

At least 15 security officials had been investigated over the death of Mr Amr, said the Palestinian interior minister, Said Abu Ali. He said several officers were on trial at a military court but he would not give their names or ranks.

Mr Abu Ali admitted that abuse and torture had happened in other cases but said there had been a great improvement in law and order in the West Bank.

In August he issued new directions about the treatment of prisoners and said he was working to restore authority to the civil judiciary, away from the military, but this required more prisons, among other things.

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was locked in a ''war'' with Hamas, he said.

Security forces had found weapons and uniforms in raids on Hamas hide-outs, a sign, he said, that the Islamist group wanted to create a security vacuum by undermining the Fatah-led security forces.

''They were preparing themselves to be an equivalent power to the Palestinian Authority,'' Mr Abu Ali said.

''In establishing a Palestinian state there is one authority, one law, one weapon … We will not allow what happened in Gaza to happen here under any circumstances.''