Israeli police rearrest freed Palestinian 'terrorist'

Jerusalem police said on Friday they have rearrested a Palestinian man days after he completed a 14-year prison sentence for a plot to poison diners at an Israeli restaurant.

A police statement said the man was detained on Thursday in the Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal Mukaber, where he lives.

"Police units arrest terrorist from Jabal Mukaber who served 14 years in prison for terrorism," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld posted on his official Twitter account.

"He was arrested again for supporting terrorism."

Rosenfeld did not identify the man, but Israeli media named him as Sufian Abdu, an accomplice in a 2002 plan by Palestinian cook Othman Qihanya to kill customers at west Jerusalem landmark Cafe Rimon, on behalf of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The Jerusalem Post said Abdu had left prison only three days before his rearrest.

Police said he was suspected of "supporting and identifying with a terror organisation", without elaborating.

Israeli public radio said he was picked up again because of "the waving of Hamas flags and the voicing of calls to violence and incitement against Israel" at a party to welcome him home from prison.

He was brought before a magistrate on Friday and remanded in custody for further questioning by the Jerusalem police "minorities" (Arab affairs) unit, a police statement said.

Source: AFP