An Israeli court on Wednesday convicted a Palestinian aid worker for funneling money from the charity he worked for to the Palestinian militant group Hamas in a six-year case that was criticized by human rights groups, who said he was an honest and transparent person. process was denied.
The aid worker, Mohammad El Halabi, 45, was manager of the Gaza Strip branch of World Vision, a Christian aid organization, when he was arrested in 2016. Israel accused him of funneling about $43 million of the group’s funds over a number of years to the military wing of the Palestinian faction. He was convicted of 13 of the 14 charges against him, including using property for terror purposes.
Israeli officials have said Halabi has transferred about 60 percent of World Vision’s annual budget for Gaza to Hamas. Some of that money was used by Hamas militants to dig cross-border tunnels to attack Israel, the officials said.
World Vision said there was no evidence to support the verdict.
“We have previously expressed our deep concern about this matter,” the group said in a statement. “In our view, there have been irregularities in the trial and a lack of substantive, public evidence. We support Mohammad’s intention to appeal the decision and call for a fair and transparent appeal process based on the facts of the case.”
In the wake of Mr. Halabi’s arrest, World Vision and some of its major government donors, including the United States and Australia, have commissioned an investigation. It was led by a global law firm and accompanied by the audit of an accounting firm, said Sharon Marshall, a spokeswoman for the group.
“They couldn’t find any evidence of misuse of funds,” Ms Marshall said, “or any connection between Mohammad and Hamas.” Halabi’s lawyer said he will appeal his conviction after he is convicted, which could be in September.
Israel accused World Vision of not being involved in the alleged scheme to divert funds.
The panel of three judges that convicted Halabi rejected testimony from defense witnesses and World Vision employees that the aid agency has strict controls in place that would make it impossible for him to transfer money to Hamas.
One of the other charges he was convicted of was carrying or possessing a weapon.
The verdict states that Halabi “confessed what was attributed to him during the interrogation”.
But his lawyer, Maher Hanna, said he never confessed to anything, adding that his client has maintained his innocence since his arrest.
The prosecution brought an undercover informant who testified that he heard Halabi confess, Hanna said.
“This is a crooked confession,” he added.
The court’s verdict acknowledged that Halabi said the confession used against him was “made up by someone on behalf of” Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet.
The conviction against Halabi constituted a miscarriage of justice, said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch.
“Halabi’s six-year detention, based largely on classified evidence, has made a mockery of a fair trial and the most basic of fair trial provisions,” he said in a statement. “He should have been released a long time ago. To hold him cruelly is deeply unjust.”
He added that Mr Halabi had rejected all plea deals, even if those deals would have had him out by now.
In 2020, four United Nations special rapporteurs called on Israeli authorities to give Halabi a fair trial or release him unconditionally. According to UN experts, Halabi was interrogated for 50 days without access to a lawyer after his arrest.
“What is happening to Mr. el-Halabi is separate from the process standards we expect from democracies and is part of a pattern in which Israel is using classified evidence to indefinitely detain hundreds of Palestinians,” the experts said.
Hiba Yazbek and Gabby Sobelman reporting contributed.
