Arab Lawyers Union’s Reported Decision To Honour Law Student Suicide Bomber Could Spark UK Response

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By Alex Aldridge on

A story has been doing the rounds on Twitter and in the Blogosphere over the weekend about an award apparently given to law student suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat by the Palestine Committee of the Arab Lawyers Union.

Jaradat (pictured) killed 21 people and injured 51 when she blew herself up in the Israeli city of Haifa in 2003 weeks before she was due to qualify as a lawyer.

If correct, the story – first reported in detail on Thursday on the website of Israel-based NGO Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) – could prompt responses from the Law Society and The Bar Council, which share membership of a number of international legal organisations with the Arab Lawyers Union (ALU).

PMW gives its source as a 14 October piece in Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Ayyam, which it quotes as stating that the Arab Lawyers Union had “created the ‘Martyr Hanadi Jaradat plaque of honor,'” and that “The delegation conveyed to the family of Martyr Jaradat the good wishes of the head of the Union, Mr. Omar Al-Zayn…and also emphasized the pride of the Arab Lawyers Union for what their daughter had done in defense of Palestine and the nation.”

PMW’s report features a photo apparently of the plaque being handed over to Jaradat’s family, but there are no hyperlinks included to the original Al-Ayyam piece. Al-Ayyam’s website is in Arabic.

None of the blogs or websites which have picked up the story have provided any additional verification.

Worth keeping an eye on…