Last update - 00:00 14/02/2007
Salah: Court has no authority to keep me from Al-Aqsa Mosque
By Yoav Stern and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents
Sheik Ra'ad Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement northern branch, on Wednesday rejected the authority of a Jerusalem court to try him for assaulting police officers during protests against excavations under a walkway leading to the Old City's Temple Mount.
Jerusalem Magistrate's Court will decide Thursday whether to impose a restraining order on Salah. The current restraining order prohibits Salah from approaching within 150 meters of the Old City.
Salah appeared at the hearing without an attorney. He called the trial "political" in nature and said "Israel does not have sovereignty over Al-Aqsa Mosque."
"Any decision coming from this court on distancing me from the Al-Aqsa Mosque is null and void," he said.
Salah said that sovereignty over the mosque belongs to the Arab and Muslim worlds alone.
"The walls, the streets, the gates, the air and the ground of Al-Aqsa belong to the Arabs," he said.
On Wednesday, state attorneys showed the court videotapes of Salah spitting at police officers and taunting them as "cowards, occupiers, murderers."
The Islamic Movement leader and four supporters were charged Monday with assaulting police officers in protests against the excavation conducted under the Mugrabi Ascent to the Temple Mount.
The indictment stated that Salah "instructed the protesters to block the streets and to resist removal."
It also says that Salah struck an officer and spat in his face, shouting, "You are racists and murderers - you have no honor."
Police are asking the court to extend the restraining order by two months.