Syria calls for immediate release of prisoner Sudqi al-Maqt

Damascus, SANA – Syria has called for the immediate release of prisoner Sudqi al-Maqt, stressing that the new unjust sentence against the Syrian prisoner al-Maqt is the subsequent of his role in unveiling the involvement of the Israeli occupation authorities in providing arms, health services and financial support to the armed terrorist groups, particularly Jabhat al-Nusra, in Syria. “On October 9th, 2018, the so-called Israeli High Court of Justice issued a verdict which supports al-Jalil Court’s sentence of 11-years imprisonment against the dean of the Syrian and Arab detainees in the Israeli jails, Sudqi al-Maqt, from Majdal Shams town in the occupied Syrian Golan who was re-detained by the Israeli authorities on February 25th, 2015, after he had already spent 27 years in Israeli prisons without any moral or legal justification,” Foreign and Expatriates ministry said in its two letters addressed to the UN Secretary General and President of UN Security Council. “Syria condemns in the strongest terms the issuance of that unfair verdict against prisoner al-Maqt and considers it as a null illegal sentence since it was issued by an occupation authority against a Syrian civilian who lives under the rule of foreign occupation” said the Ministry. It added that the sentence constitutes a new legal scandal to be added to Israeli entity’s long history of war crimes and violations of the international law and the international humanitarian law and international human rights law as well as the UN Security Council Resolution No. 497 which prevents Israeli entity from taking punitive measures against the Syrians in the occupied Syrian Golan. “Syria calls on UN Secretary General, the UNSC, the Higher Commission for Human Rights and all international humanitarian organizations, including the international Committee of the Red Cross, to force the Israeli authorities to immediately release al-Maqt without any conditions since the unjust Israeli decision flagrantly contradicts with the rights of Syrians living under the Israeli occupation and the principle of justice which should be preserved in all places and at all times,” said the Ministry. It also urged for releasing all Syrian detainees who are arrested in the Israeli jails. The ministry called for implementing provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the international humanitarian law on the Arab territories occupied by the Israeli entity, including the occupied Syrian Golan, stressing rejection of Israeli mock trials of prisoners.