A Palestinian captured in the Ukraine and transported to Israel was charged yesterday, shedding light on a case that has been cloaked in secrecy for months.
The Israeli indictment claims that the Gaza engineer, Dirar Abu Sisi, was a senior Hamas operative who developed sophisticated rockets to be fired at civilians.
Abu Sisi, who disappeared from a sleeper train in the Ukraine in February, was kept weeks without access to a lawyer, he claims.
He denies the charges and says that he was illegally kidnapped. He says that Israel levelled false accusations at him after they could not link him to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit.
“I don’t have any connection with Schalit and the investigation proved that,” he said. “When they found out I don’t have any connection they fabricated these charges.”