PA lawmaker guilty of terror charges

PA lawmaker guilty of terror charges
Associated Press
September 4, 2005

An Israeli military court on Sunday convicted a Palestinian lawmaker of being a member of a terror group and helping to fund terror attacks, including at least one failed suicide bombing, the IDF said.

Husam Khader, the 43-year-old lawmaker, reached a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors and confessed to the charges, the IDF said. Khader has been a lawmaker since 1996.

Khader, who was arrested in March 2003, was convicted of helping to form a terror group in the area of the West Bank city of Nablus, helping to filter money to the group so it could purchase weapons and of failing to prevent an attack he knew was planned, the IDF said in a statement.

Khader's group sent two suicide bombers to a West Bank settlement in January 2003, but the attack was foiled by security forces, the statement said.

Khader will be sentenced on October 23.

A longtime member of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah movement, Khader is a leader of the Fatah youth group and was arrested several times during the first intifada in the 1980s for participating in the movement's activities. He was convicted only once and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Khader was also one of several hundred Palestinians deported by Israel in 1988 for his uprising activities. Khader returned to the West Bank in 1994.

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