THE
JUDGE was fairly reasonable for most of the trial, as can be seen in his dismissal
of the case against Nadia Zekra, but parts of his summing up were grossly unfair
and biased against Samar and Jawad. For the last day and a half of his summing
up he clearly shifted the balance against Samar and Jawad and hardly mentioned
any of their defence case. He even contradicted himself and made several factual
errors which were unfair and hostile in their effects on Samar and Jawad.
For example, the judge adopted the prosecution's stance and told the jury that
Samar had lied to the police when she was questioned in January 1995 about her
whereabouts on the day of the bombings. He advised the jury that they could
draw adverse inferences from these 'lies'. But Samar had not lied to the police.
Naturally she was unsure about her movements on a particular day six months
previously, and, although she could have remained silent, she still tried to
answer the police questions and she was eventually able to reconstruct most
of her movements. As Gareth Peirce said, "..if someone is guilty and putting
forward a false defence, you could be very sure that the first thing they would
mention to you was that they had an alibi."
Samar was never accused of actually planting either of the bombs and so her
movements on that day were not relevant, but nevertheless, the jury would of
course have been influenced by the judge mistakenly telling them that she had
lied.
WHEN
Samar and Jawad came to be sentenced in December 1996 after their trial, the
court received dozens of letters from people all over the world, including some
from Israel, asking the judge to treat them leniently. Some of these appeals
came from prominent members of the Palestinian community such as Ahmed Qurie,
the leader of the Palestinian team at the Oslo peace talks and the Speaker of
the Palestinian Legislative Council and Dr Haidar Abdul Shafi, leader of the
Palestinian team to the Madrid Peace Conference.
Hanan Ashrawi, who contributed to the launching of the peace process, served
as Spokesperson for the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East process and
was at the time the Palestinian Minister of Higher Education, wrote "I appeal
to you to consider the shortest possible sentence, given their age and the mitigating
circumstances relevant to their case."
The judge sentenced Samar and Jawad each to 20 years imprisonment and made a
recommendation that they be deported afterwards. Samar is now in Durham prison's
H-wing, detained as a 'Category A' high security prisoner, and Jawad is in Frankland
prison, also detained as a high security 'Category A' prisoner.
In comparison, a man was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1995 on an
almost identical charge, that of conspiracy to cause explosions at the Syrian
Embassy in London. The 20-year sentences handed down to Samar and Jawad were
clearly excessive as even the prosecution said that some care had clearly been
taken to minimise the risk of casualties caused by the explosions, the primary
purpose of which it seems was to damage buildings, not injure people. No one
was killed. And Samar and Jawad were not alleged to be the 'major' conspirators.
Unfortunately, as Gareth Peirce says, "Where people are wrongly convicted they
can, and do on occasion, serve the whole of the sentence imposed upon them."
