Key Palestinian Barghouti Convicted by Israeli Court

An Israeli court on Thursday convicted Marwan Barghouti, a firebrand Palestinian leader who has long been viewed as the most likely successor to Yasser Arafat, in the deaths of five people in terrorist attacks.

In a slap at the prosecution, however, the three-judge panel acquitted Barghouti in connection with 21 other killings, saying there was insufficient evidence linking him to the deaths. Legal analysts said the precedent set by that decision could make it more difficult to prove other Palestinian political leaders’ culpability in suicide bombings, shootings and other acts of violence by militants.

Barghouti is to be sentenced June 6, and prosecutor Dvorah Chen asked the court to impose five consecutive life terms.

Long jail terms for charismatic Palestinian leaders sometimes have served only to fuel their popularity. Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, assassinated in March by Israeli forces, built an enormous and fervent following while incarcerated from 1989 to 1997.

Barghouti’s trial has been as much a piece of political theater as a legal proceeding.

From the beginning, the 44-year-old lawmaker -- who was snatched by Israeli commandos two years ago in a West Bank raid -- insisted that he did not recognize the authority of the Israeli court.

He spurned legal assistance and mounted no formal defense. He gave incendiary courtroom speeches in fluent Hebrew learned in Israeli jails. He was photographed time and again defiantly raising his manacled hands clasped into a fist.

At court sessions, Barghouti sometimes bantered with court officials and occasionally exchanged gibes with spectators, some of them relatives of Israelis killed in attacks, who regularly disrupted hearings by screaming that he was a murderer and a terrorist.

Barghouti, who headed the West Bank branch of Arafat’s Fatah faction, is the most senior Palestinian official to be charged and convicted in an Israeli court as a leader of the intifada, or uprising.

Israel described him as a driving force behind the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed Palestinian militia loosely linked with Fatah that sprang up in the early days of the 3 1/2-year-old conflict. But Barghouti is also a longtime advocate of a negotiated peace with Israel.

He was accused of channeling funds to Palestinian militants and of inspiring violent acts by them. But the Tel Aviv District Court judges emphasized that under Israeli law, even evidence of a fair degree of organizational control over such assailants was not sufficient for a conviction, unless direct involvement in their activities was proved.

“The court’s reasoning for acquitting Barghouti of other charges may well close the door on attempts to prove other Palestinians’ criminal responsibility for terror,” said Moshe Negby, the country’s premier legal commentator. “In certain respects, Barghouti’s trial was a test case.”

Perhaps mindful of that, the judges made a point of harshly criticizing Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority, whom Israel repeatedly has said it holds responsible for attacks even if he did not specifically order them.

“Yasser Arafat did not give clear and precise instructions, but he made sure those under him understood fully when he was interested in a cease-fire and when he was interested in attacks against Israel,” the judges wrote in their ruling.

Israel’s justice minister, Tommy Lapid, repeated threats that Israel might put Arafat on trial someday.

Barghouti was found guilty, in part based on his own statements and those of associates, of involvement in three shootings. One killed a Greek Orthodox monk near his West Bank monastery in June 2001, another left a West Bank settler dead in January 2002, and a third killed three people at a Tel Aviv restaurant in March of that year.

Although denying any direct connection with attacks against Israelis, Barghouti, who was wearing a brown prison jumpsuit, insisted that Palestinians had the right to rise up against an occupying army.

“I have a message for the Israeli people: Don’t believe for a minute you can overcome the Palestinians by force,” he said. “Palestinians have no power, but they have right on their side.”