Hamas sentences three to death over killing top commander

The military court in the Zionist regime-blockaded Gaza Strip has delivered death sentences to three Palestinians responsible for the assassination of one of the high-ranking military commanders of Hamas resistance movement earlier this year.

The Ministry of Interior and National Security in Gaza announced on Sunday that the court found Ashraf Abu Leila, the prime suspect in the assassination of 38-year-old military commander Mazen Fuqahaa, guilty of premeditated murder, treason and conspiracy with hostile foreign parties, and sentenced him to hang.

The others were identified as Hisham al-Aloul, 44, who was also sentenced to hang, and Abdallah al-Nashar, who was to face the firing squad. They were all convicted of collaborating with the Israeli regime.

Aloul was convicted of conspiracy and treason as well as involvement in the killing of the senior Hamas commander.

Nashar was found guilty of treason and conspiracy, and leaking information about Fuqahaa’s movements and his hangouts.

Chairman of the Hamas-run military judiciary, Brigadier General Nasser Suleiman, said Sunday's verdicts are final and cannot be appealed according to the rules of the Military Field Tribunal.

Speaking at a press conference in Gaza City on May 11, the new chief of Hamas’s political bureau said Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip had detained Fuqahaa's assassin.

Ismail Haniyeh stated that a fair and appropriate punishment would be handed out on the basis of the movement’s judicial principles, and in honor of Fuqahaa, all Palestinian martyrs as well as all prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Hamas chief stressed that the Israeli regime was behind the criminal act.

Fuqahaa was shot in the head four times at the entrance to a residence in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City on March 24.

SS