Salah sentenced to 5 months for assault

Islamic Movement leader's time reduced from 9 months.

Sheikh Raed Salah 311 (photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Sheikh Raed Salah 311
(photo credit: Ben Hartman)
The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday reduced the sentence Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Raed Salah, convicted of assaulting a police officer in 2007, from nine months to five.
Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, was recently detained after participating in the May 31 Gaza-bound flotilla, which prompted a raid by Israeli commandos that left nine Turkish citizens dead. The assault conviction is unrelated to the flotilla.
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Sheikh Kamal Khatib told AFP that "the court refused to cancel the sentence but decided to reduce it."
Khabit called the conviction was a "political decision" against the Islamic Movement, which has led several recent Jerusalem protests that turned violent.
Salah continued to deny the 2007 assault, which happened in the Old City of Jerusalem in February 2007, during an Israeli construction project near the Al-Aksa mosque - the Temple Mount.