BICOM

Raed Salah, a leading member of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, has been charged with incitement to terrorism and membership of an illegal organisation.

The indictment was filed at Haifa Magistrate’s Court and the evidence was based on a speech given by Salah at the funeral of the three men murdered two Israeli policemen on 14 July. Commenting at the hearing, a police spokesperson said: “We believe that his sermons led to attacks and attempted attacks.”

Salah is also charged with membership of an illegal organisation because of his continued involvement in the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement. Israel banned the group, which rejects the Oslo accords and is connected to Hamas, in November 2015.

On Thursday prosecutors requested that he be held in custody until the end of the legal proceedings.

Salah’s supporters say he “stands against the murder of innocents ” and have called the preacher’s arrest political intimidation and say it was intended to silence dissent.

Salah was only released from prison in January after serving nine months after his conviction for inciting violence in a sermon he delivered in 2007. He has previously suggested that Jewish people were responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York and invoked the antisemitic blood libel by claiming that Jews use blood when baking Matzah bread for Passover.

He was also detained in London 2011 for ignoring a travel ban issued by then Home Secretary Theresa May. He had been due to attend a high profile event at the House of Commons arranged by the then backbench Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn.  The Labour leader described the Islamic leader as “a very honoured citizen” whose “voice must be heard” in 2012.

In related news Amjad Jabareen, 34, from Umm el-Fahm, was indicted in the Haifa District Court yesterday in relation to the Temple Mount terror attack. He was charged with being an accomplice to the attackers, with causing substantial bodily harm, with weapons violations, with obstruction of justice and with conspiracy to perpetrate a felony.

It is alleged that he assisted the assailants to find places to practice their shooting and helped them scout out the security cameras on the Temple Mount. The indictment claims that Jabareen drove the assailants part of the way to the Temple Mount and hid some of their personal items, contacted another person to destroy footage of them preparing for the attack at an Umm el-Fahm mosque and erased all communication with and contact details of the suspects from his cellphone. He is also alleged to have been present during multiple conversations in which the assailants discussed the details of the planned attack. The indictment noted that the terrorists initially disagreed about whether to carry out their attack on a settlement or near the Temple Mount.