Ouda Tarabin (born ?) is an Israeli Bedouin. On 2000, The Egyptians arrested 19 year old Israeli Ouda Tarabin after he illegally crossed the border from Israel (his brother suggests he went over to visit his sister in El-Arish). [1] [2] Illegal border crossings by the Bedouin residents of Israel and Egypt are not a rarity; Israel also occasionally arrests Egyptian crossers, who are returned over the border after a short interrogation. Ouda, however, was tried in absentia by Egyptian military court, though never indicted; when he was arrested the court informed him that he has been sentenced to 15 years before he had entered Egypt and that his father had been similarly sentenced in absentia to 25 years for espionage.
Ouda, therefore, had no chance of defending himself in person, and was convicted under Egypt's emergency law, in effect since 1981, granting police sweeping powers of arrest. The stated basis of the prosecution was testimony given by Ouda's Egyptian cousin, Eid Suleiman, who was arrested for similar charges in 1999 and remains in prison today. According to his family, Ouda he has done nothing wrong other than cross into Egypt without the proper documentation. As of August 2008, he is still in a Cairo Jail, in the same cell in which Azzam Azzam was held.
Previously, the Egyptians imprisoned another Israeli citizen, Azzam Azzam, sent to Egypt to train local textile workers, for 8 years on espionage charges which Israel claims are unfounded; no credible evidence has been publicized to date.
Druze MK Ayoob Kara has met with Tarabin's family to work to secure his release.[3]