Sheikh Raed Salah sentenced to five months for spitting at a border policeman

Sheikh Raed Salah (Picture Ma'an News)

Israel's Jerusalem District Court sentenced Sheikh Raed Salah to five months imprisonment on Tuesday for spitting on an Israeli border guard in 2007. The leader of the Islamic Movement in Northern Israel's earlier  nine months, that was reduced. His sentence takes effect as from 25 July.
A lawyer at the hearing told Ma'an that the ruling, which saw Salah convicted of assault, was unprecedented.
Palestinian member of Israel's Knesset Haneen Zoabi, who was present at the ruling, described it as an "unjustified. This is an exaggeration, and not an objective ruling ... Israel treats Palestinians not as citizens but as enemies. This hostile dealing comes across all institutions, not just politically or in the Knesset, but also the court system, which is supposed to protect the rights of its citizens," Zoabi said.
Salah was indicted on assault charges following reports that he spat on a border guard in East Jerusalem's Old City in 2007 during a rally against Israeli construction near the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound.
(This version CORRECTS that Salah was convicted for spitting on a border guard and not for his involvement in the Freedom Flotilla.)