RAMALLAH, Tuesday, January 08, 2019 (WAFA) – The Israeli authorities transferred on Tuesday alleged attacker Assem Barghouti, from Kobar village near Ramallah, to the infamous Russian Compound prison in West Jerusalem and barred him from seeing a lawyer, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS).

The Israeli army captured Barghouti on Tuesday during a raid on the village of Abu Shkheidem, northwest of Ramallah. Israel accuses him of shooting and killing two Israeli soldiers near Ramallah on December 13.

Meanwhile, a military court at Ofer camp, near Ramallah, remanded Barghouti’s father, Omar Barghouti, 66, for 72 hours in what the PPS said was a prelude to placing him in administrative detention.

The army detained Omar Barghouti and his son, Assef, on the day of the attack and after killing his oldest son, Saleh, on December 12 after accusing him of shooting and injuring Israeli settlers days before he was killed.

Currently, Omar and his three sons, including Assem, Assef and the youngest Mohammad, 17, are in detention. Only the mother is left at home alone but she was also threatened to be expelled to live in exile in Jericho, east of the occupied West Bank, as a punishment to the family for its sons’ acts.

The PPS said the Israeli army detained 40 residents of Kobar, the Barghouti’ hometown, since December 12, most of them related to the Barghoutis in one way or another.

Assem Barghouti was released from prison in Israel in April of last year after serving 11 years for resisting the Israeli occupation. Omar Barghouti spent a total of 26 years behind bars serving actual sentence and being held in administrative detention.

M.K.