Nasrallah: Egyption Court Sentence a Badge of Honor

Al-Manar TV | April 29, 2010

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said that the verdicts in Egypt against the freedom fighters who were offering support to the resistance in the Gaza Strip are politicized and unfair.

Speaking to the Kuwaiti Al-Rai television to be broadcast Thursday, Sayyed Nasrallah said that “when those brothers were arrested in Egypt, we stressed – and I’ve said this personally – that those are honest resistance fighters, not outlaws, criminals, and terrorists as the judge described them. They are honest people and their only crime is that they were supporting their brothers in Gaza and giving help to the legitimate Palestinian resistance which should be embraced by everybody. Those men were fulfilling their duty and everything beside this are mere fabrications to cover the measures that were taken against them.”

The Secretary General addressed the detained resistance men and their families: “When you chose the path of backing the Palestinian people, you knew that you could be arrested or maybe killed as martyrs at any time. What you have gone through in jail and the sentences that have been issued today is a badge of honor on your chests.” […]

Sayyed Nasrallah added: “Of course the doors are not closed in Egypt, and we are surely not going to let those brothers in prison. We will follow up this case even if a sentence was issued, and we’ll seek to resolve the matter as we did in the past, through legal and judicial channels…This case is no longer a judicial matter, so perhaps the only available exits are political ones.”

The Hezbollah leader concluded: “We will seek, through political and diplomatic channels to resolve this issue, establish our brothers’ rights, and not letting them in prison.”

A Cairo court on Wednesday handed down jail sentences against 26 men it convicted of plotting attacks against ships in the Suez Canal and on tourist sites, among other charges.

The defendants said in a hand-written letter obtained by AFP that they never planned attacks in Egypt. They said they had tried to help the Hamas movement during Israel’s devastating December 2008-January 2009 offensive against the Palestinian territory.