Ahmad Sa'adat (also transliterated from Arabic as Ahmed Sadat/Saadat, Arabic: احمد سعدات) (born in 1953 in West Bank village of al-Bireh) is a Palestinian militant in the and Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant Palestinian group.[1] Sa'adat graduated in 1975 from the UNRWA Teachers College, Ramallah, specializing in Mathematics. He has been frequently arrested by Israeli Occupation authorities since his youth. The first occasion was in February 1969, when he was kept in detention for 3 months. He was rearrested the following year, and imprisoned for 2 years and 4 months. Soon after his release, in 1973 he was detained for 10 months, and again in 1975 for 45 days. After his graduation, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison, and in 1985 served another 2.5 years. In 1989 he was held under administrative detention for 9 months, and in 1992 for 13 months. [2]
Saadat became the Secretary-General of the PFLP in October 2001. He succeeded Abu Ali Mustafa to the post, after Mustafa was assassinated by Israelis at his office in Ramallah in the West Bank. He believes in the right of return for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants back to their former homes.
He was imprisoned in Jericho by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in 2002. In March 2006, the US and British team in charge of monitoring the prison left because of poor security conditions. Israeli forces subsequently carried out the so-called Operation Bringing Home the Goods and kidnapped Sa'adat and took him to Israel; he is currently in solitary confinement in an Israeli prison.
Sa'adat was accused by Israel of organizing the assassination of the Israeli Tourism Minister, Rehavam Ze'evi, who was killed on October 17, 2001. He took refuge in the Muqata'a headquarters of PLO leader Yassir Arafat, who refused to hand him over to Israel.
After negotiations involving the United States and the Britain, an agreement was reached between Israel and the PNA. Israel called off the siege of the Muqata'a, and Sa'adat was arrested, given a military trial and put in a Palestinian jail in Jericho, with a force of US and British guards overseeing his captivity. He was not allowed to run for political office, give interviews or address the public, although these bans were occasionally circumvented or ignored.
The Palestinian Supreme Court declared that Sa'adat's imprisonment was unconstitutional, and ordered his release, but the PNA has refused to comply. Amnesty International has declared that this, and the fact that he received an unfair trial, makes his detention illegal, and that he must either be charged with a crime and given due process, or released. [1]
On Tuesday, March 14, 2006, the US and Britain withdrew monitors from the Jericho jail where Saadat was being held. Israeli forces then launched Operation Bringing Home the Goods, surrounding the prison to prevent the escape of Saadat. In the ensuing stand-off, Palestinian guards left the prison but 200 prisoners refused to surrender.
A ten hour standoff broke out,[3] with Israeli soldiers besieging the prison and clashing with Palestinian Authority security personnel, as Sa'adat and five other prisoners barricaded themselves inside. During the course of the standoff, two Palestinian security officers were killed and 28 wounded, and Sa'adat eventually ordered his men to lay down their arms and surrender. Israeli military forces took Sa'adat and the five other inmates into custody. After his arrest, he was interrogated by the Israeli security service Shin Bet.
On December 25, 2008, an Israeli military court sentenced Ahmad Sa'adat, being the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), to 30 years in prison for heading an "illegal terrorist organization" and for his responsibility for all actions carried out by his organization, [4] especially for the murder of Rehavam Ze'evi.
There was speculation that Hamas was attempting to include Sa'adat among the Palestinian prisoners released in October 2011 in a swap for the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. According to a BBC Correspondent, Israel refused to include Sa'adat in the final deal.[5]