Israel to hold Moslem cleric under administrative detention

Marjorie Olster, The Associated Press, Jerusalem

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“JERUSALEM — Israel is holding a Moslem cleric kidnapped from south Lebanon two weeks ago under administrative detention orders normally used to detain Palestinians without trial, the army said today.

The announcement of a six-month detention order against Sheik Abdel-Karim Obeid officially confirmed for the first time that Obeid is being held in Israel and not in the Israeli-controlled buffer zone in south Lebanon. But officials have not said where in Israel Obeid is held.

The military censor, meanwhile, has asked police to open an investigation into a report in the Sunday Times of London that said two of three Israeli soldiers missing in Lebanon are dead, said Eitan Haber, spokesman for Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin… An army spokesman said Obeid, the Lebanese cleric kidnapped by Israeli commandos on July 28, is being held for a half-year under an administrative detention order signed by Chief of Staff Lt.

Gen. Dan Shomron. Under administrative detention, which Israel adopted from 1945 British emergency regulations, prisoners can be held up to one year without being tried or charged. Israel accuses Obeid of coordinating attacks by the Moslem fundamentalist Hezbollah on Israeli troops in south Lebanon.

Administrative detainees are normally entitled to have a lawyer and appeal their detention. But the army spokesman, who is not identified under military regulations, would not say if these rights were extended to Obeid.

Obeid’s abduction drew worldwide attention after a radical Shiite group in Lebanon claimed to have killed an American hostage because Israel refused to free the cleric. It remains unclear, however, if the hostage, Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, was killed after Obeid’s abduction or before.

Israel has demanded the release of three Israelis missing in Lebanon as well as 16 foreign hostages in exchange for Obeid and other Shiite Moslem prisoners. Longest held of those hostages is Terry A.

Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent of The AP, who has been held 4½ years… The story written by the paper’s London-based Middle East correspondent Marie Colvin said intelligence officers questioning Obeid have concluded that the two infantrymen died of wounds soon after their car was ambushed in south Lebanon in February 1986.

Israel’s chief army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ephraim Lapid, did not confirm or deny the report but said the government considers its soldiers to be alive and well unless it is given substantial documentary proof to the contrary.

In another report on the hostage affair, The Independent of London said Monday that Obeid’s abduction had sabotaged sensitive overtures by Israel to Iran and the Hezbollah to free the prisoners… The team had ‘opened new channels with Iran and the Hezbollah via two Palestinian Shiites who have close links with Teheran,’ the paper said.

Frustrated by the slow progress of negotiations, Israel kidnapped Obeid, it said… One security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the report was ‘nonsense.’”

Context added by this archive

The archive holds this for a sentence in the middle of it: administrative detention is described as the order “normally used to detain Palestinians without trial,” adopted from 1945 British emergency regulations. The army spokesman is, by regulation, not named.

Cite this clipping

"Israel to hold Moslem cleric under administrative detention," Ann Arbor News, 15 August 1989, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1989-009. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1989-009

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