Judge demands prison for Lebanese woman for singing in Israel
Source: Associated Press
Publication date: 2002-02-06
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- A military judge Wednesday formally charged a Lebanese woman of ``contacting Israel'' by singing in the Jewish state, a charge that carries up to 15 years in prison.
An indictment read by judge Riad Talieh also accused singer Nada Rizk of frequently visiting Israel, giving an interview to Israel radio on Oct. 24 about her singing career, and of marrying Abdel Basset Ahmed bin Oudeh, an Israeli-Arab who worked for the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. Rizk is believed to be living in Israel.
Lebanon is technically at war with Israel, banning any dealings or contacts with the Jewish state, which withdrew from a border zone in south Lebanon in May 2000, ending an 18-year occupation.
Bishara Rizk, Nada's brother, was recently sentenced by a military court to six months in jail for collaboration with Israel and the South Lebanon Army, a militia that helped Israel police the border zone. Their father, Jerjis, had served as a senior SLA commander before he fled with his wife to Israel after its pullout.
In Kuwait, meanwhile, an anti-Israel group slammed a senior government official for taking part in a Washington seminar with two Israeli speakers, saying his ``abominable deed'' was punishable by law.
The People's Congress for Resisting Normalization Between the Israeli Enemy and the Gulf said in a statement Wednesday that it had held an emergency meeting when it learned that Shafiq al-Ghabra participated in the seminar with Israel's former foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and the president of Tel Aviv University, Itamar Rabinovitch.
The weekend seminar discussed the Middle East peace process.
Al-Ghabra, who heads the state's Kuwait Information Office in Washington, is also a political science lecturer at Kuwait University.
Kuwait's government refuses to have any formal ties with Israel before a peace settlement between the Jewish state and all its Arab neighbors is in place. But after the 1991 Gulf War that liberated the country from a seven-month Iraqi occupation, Kuwait ended its boycott of companies that do business with Israel, citing ``considerations of national interest.'' Many such companies were needed for post-war reconstruction.