The Israeli military court extended the solitary confinement of Palestinian engineer and political prisoner Dirar Abu Sisi, kidnapped from the Ukraine, for six months on October 31, despite his lawyer’s appeal that this treatment is illegal.
Abu Sisi, 42, is in isolation in Ashkelon prison, and suffers from untreated anemia and back, hearing and vision problems. He was abducted from the Ukraine on February 19, 2011 by the Mossad. He is married (to a Ukrainian citizen), the father of six children, and holds a graduate degree in electrical engineering. He was the key engineer of Gaza’s power plants.
As a clause of the agreement ending the prisoners’ Karameh hunger strike on May 14, 2012, all prisoners should have been released from solitary confinement; however, Israel has refused, in violation of the agreement, to return Dirar Abu Sisi and Awad al-Saidi to the general population.
In October, Ahmad Sa’adat cited Abu Sisi’s isolation as a key example of the Israeli authorities’ refusal to implement the agreement, saying “The Israeli prison authority did not abide in the hunger strike agreement, especially since the prisoner Dirar Abu Sisi is still isolated,” when meeting with a lawyer from the Palestinian Prisoners’ society.
