The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has reiterated that Saudi Arabia should release Palestinians held in its prisons, particularly the high-ranking ailing official Muhammad al-Khudari.
In a press release on Tuesday, senior Hamas official Ra’fat Murra said the continued detention of Khudari, 83, and other Palestinians is a “great injustice and an offense to the Palestinian people, their just cause and the Palestinian-Saudi relations.”
Murra urged the Saudi authorities to make a “courageous and responsible” decision to immediately end the trial of Khudari and others, especially as “the detainees have not committed any offense.”
He noted that Khudari and other Palestinian detainees and their families “have gone through injustice and suffering for more than two years.”
Khudari was brought once again before Riyadh’s Specialized Criminal Court on Tuesday.
On June 21, Khudari and his son Hani, among other Palestinians and Jordanians, are to attend a court hearing.
Khudari and his son were arbitrarily arrested on April 4, 2019.
Khudari has been living in Saudi Arabia for over 30 years, and represented Hamas between mid-1990s and 2003 in the kingdom.
Hamas says Khudari’s health has been deteriorating in the nearly three years of imprisonment.
“All that Khudari did was to support the Palestinian cause, and the legitimate public struggle against the Occupation (Israeli regime),” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem has said.
Saudi Arabia’s repressive measures against the Palestinian resistance movement as well as those seeking to collect donations for people living in the blockaded Gaza Strip coincide with Riyadh’s expansion of secret ties with Israel under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.