Jordanian prisoner in Israel released after serving 26-month sentence

AMMAN — A Jordanian prisoner in an Israeli jail was released on Sunday after serving his sentence, an activist said Monday.

“Mohammad Taher, 27, served a 26-month prison term in Israel after being convicted of membership in the Islamist Hamas group,” Shireen Nafe, a member of the media team supporting Jordanian prisoners in Israel, Fedaa, told The Jordan Times.

Israel considers Hamas a “terrorist group”.

In September, 2012, two months after he was married, Taher decided to visit his relatives in Nablus through the Karameh border crossing, where Israeli occupation forces arrested him.

He was held at the Jalmeh investigation centre and subjected to “severe psychological and physical torture”, Nafe said.

Taher holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Yarmouk University and was planning to pursue has postgraduate education before he was detained.

“After the release of Taher, the number of Jordanian prisoners in Israel decreased to 25,” Nafe noted.

Fardos Taher, the mother of the released prisoner, was quoted in a Fedaa statement as saying that her son’s friends and relatives had already started arrangements to receive him, expressing hope he will be sent home without any delays.