Hamas member jailed for life

– A Palestinian suspected of belonging to the Islamist group Hamas has been given a life sentence in Austria for plotting a terror attack against Jews in Israel.

The 27-year-old, who was arrested at an asylum-seeker centre in Lower Austria last July, was found guilty late on Monday of belonging to a terror organisation and attempting to incite murder.

Prosecutors accused him of contacting two men in the Palestinian territories and ordering them to carry out killings of Jews in Jerusalem. Both accomplices were detained by Israeli authorities in June 2016, leading to the arrest of the alleged mastermind the following month.

Mobile phone messages exchanged between the trio revealed that the Palestinian had told the other two men to throw “apples” – a code word for hand grenades – into crowds in Jerusalem. – AFP