Abd al-Majid Nimer Zaghmout (died 15 February 2000) was a
Palestinian
Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine.
*: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...
national imprisoned in
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
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 that it has more than ten million members a ...
as "possibly the
longest-serving arbitrarily detained political prisoner in the Middle East". He was formerly a member of
Fatah
Fatah ( ; ), formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (), is a Palestinian nationalist and Arab socialist political party. It is 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; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...
.
advising of his death, 21 February 2000 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 committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...
of the Palestinian
guerrilla
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...
leader Yusuf 'Urabi. He denied the charges and alleged he had been
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
d 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 (; 11 May 1932 – 27 June 2017) was a Syrian military officer, author, historian and politician who was Ba'athist Syria's minister of defense from 1972 to 2004. He was part of the four-member Regional Command during th ...
, ordered his release in 1989, but the order was not carried out.
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 by Syria
{{Palestine-bio-stub