Samer Allawi, Al Jazeera journalist, freed by Israel
Israel released Al Jazeera's Kabul bureau chief, Samer Allawi, Monday and said the Palestinian journalist had confessed to links with Hamas.
Israel says Allawi confessed to conspiring in Hamas operations and therefore reached a deal Sunday with the Israel State Prosecutor’s Office, the Jerusalem Post reports. It states that the bureau chief has been given a suspended sentence. He is now free to return to Afghanistan.
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Allawi was arrested in August on the border between the West Bank and Jordan.
The Jerusalem Post says the Palestinian was recruited into Hamas in 1993.
"During the interrogation with the Shin Bet, Allawi said he attended a meeting in 2000 in Saudi Arabia in which he said he would be part of a terror operation on behalf of Hamas. He also offered to use his position as a reporter to promote Hamas interests," it states.
However, Allawi's Al Jazeera network reports that the journalist said Monday that his contacts with Palestinian Islamists were part of his work as a journalist.
"There was no evidence against me," he told Reuters. "The whole arrest episode was a charade aimed at extorting Al Jazeera. I was not the target."
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