200 celebrities sign open letter calling for release of Palestinian terrorist

More than 200 celebrities, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Paul Simon and Sir Ian McKellen, have signed an open letter calling for the release of a Palestinian political leader and convicted terrorist from an Israeli prison.

The letter, whose signatories also included Gary Lineker, Phillip Pullman, Delia Smith and Sir Richard Branson, said: “We express our grave concern at the continuing imprisonment of Marwan Barghouti, his violent mistreatment and denial of legal rights whilst imprisoned. We call upon the United Nations and the governments of the world to actively seek the release of Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison.”

Barghouti has regularly led opinion polls when Palestinians have been asked who they would vote for in a Presidential election. A member of Fatah since his teens, he was expelled from the West Bank between 1987 and 1994, when he returned to Ramallah and became a leading figure in Palestinian political circles.

Barghouti was arrested in 2002, and in 2004 was found guilty of five counts of murder, as well as a count of attempted murder. Israel charged that Barghouti was a co-founder and leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the terrorist group aligned with Fatah which carried out dozens of terror attacks against civilians. Publicly, Barghouti had called for attacks on Israeli soldiers and Israelis living in both Gaza and the West Bank, but not Israeli civilians elsewhere. He refused to present any defence against the charges against him, maintaining that the trial and court were illegitimate. Many Palestinians, as well as international parliamentary and legal sympathisers with the Palestinian cause, have claimed the charges against Barghouti were a sham.

Israel has repeatedly refused to countenance Barghouti’s release, with reports that Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, has opposed freeing Barghouti, knowing that this would present a major challenge to his authority. There has not been an election for President of the Palestinian Authority since 2005, when Abbas won after the imprisoned Barghouti was persuaded by those close to him to withdraw his candidacy.

In August this year Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far right Israeli Security Minister, released a short video of a visit he had made to Barghouti in prison, in which he told the Palestinian “You won’t win. Whoever messes with the nation of Israel, whoever murders our children and women, we will wipe them out.”