The project coordinator at the Palestinian NGO Health Work Committees (HWC) – an organization considered illegal by the country’s authorities – was arrested in April 2021
The Israeli prison authorities have granted parole on Tuesday to the Spanish aid worker Juana Ruiz, sentenced to 13 months in prison for working for an illegal organization and for having introduced money with false pretenses in the West Bank, as confirmed by her lawyer, Europa Press. Avigdor Feldman.
The decision adopted by the Parole Board “can still be appealed by the State, so Juana will not yet be released,” said the lawyer. After the sentence occurred last November, the defense already tried unsuccessfully to obtain the parole of the Spanish.
Ruiz, a project coordinator at the Palestinian NGO Health Work Committees (HWC) -an organization considered illegal by Israel-, was arrested in April 2021 at her home in Beit Sahur, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Defense and prosecution reached an agreement in November by which the aid worker was sentenced to 13 months in prison. There were initially five charges against him, three in connection with his work at HWC, as well as bringing money into the Palestinian territories and receiving funds under false pretenses. Under the agreement with the prosecutor, only two of them remained, for working for an illegal organization and for having introduced money under false pretenses.
Israeli authorities link HWC to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist organization, and claim that the NGO Ruiz worked for diverts funds to finance the terrorist activities of this group.
In addition, the agreement with the accusation served as an argument for the Israeli government to reaffirm its complaint that another six NGOs banned in 2021 finance the activities of the FPLF, which both the EU and the United States consider a terrorist organization.
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