Abd al-Majid Nimer Zaghmout (died 15 February 2000) was a Palestinian national imprisoned in

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

who was described by

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

as "possibly the longest-serving arbitrarily detained political prisoner in the Middle East". He was formerly a member of

Fatah Fatah ( ar, فتح '), formerly the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, is a Palestinian nationalist social democratic political party and the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and ...

, a mainstream faction of the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establ ...

. At his death, Zaghmout was arguably the longest-serving political prisoner in the world.

Arrest, trial and imprisonment

He was arrested in 1966 and charged with the politically motivated

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

of the Palestinian guerrilla leader Yusuf 'Urabi. He denied the charges and alleged he had been tortured for 46 days after his arrest to force him to confess. After a trial described in some quarters as "unfair", he was sentenced to death by a military court. The Syrian Minister of Defence, General

Mustafa Tlass Mustafa Abdul Qadir Tlass ( ar, مُصْطَفَى عَبْد الْقَادِر طَلَاس, Musṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir Ṭalās; 11 May 1932 – 27 June 2017) was a Syrian senior military officer and politician who was Syria's minister of defe ...

, ordered his release in 1989, but the order was not carried out.October 1998 Amnesty International appeal
for medical letter writing action on his behalf

Death

Zaghmout died of cancer in a military hospital on 15 February 2000.

References

Year of birth missing 2000 deaths Palestinian people imprisoned abroad Prisoners and detainees of Syria {{Palestine-bio-stub