Israel Charges Turkish Tourist With ‘aiding Hamas’

Israel charged a detained Turkish tourist, Ebru Ozkan on Sunday with helping smuggle money and packages to Palestinian group Hamas, in a case that has angered Ankara, which has vowed to retaliate.

Ozkan, 27, has been held since last month when she was detained trying to board a flight in Tel Aviv. One of the charges she faces is for smuggling five bottles of perfume, which her lawyer ridiculed as trivial, saying she should be released.

Ozkan was led, manacled, to the dock in an Israeli military court on the boundary with the occupied West Bank, where she was indicted on two counts of acting in the service of a proscribed group, one count of transferring money for enemy agents, and one count of threatening public order.

If convicted, she could face several years in jail.

Though she is accused of having also brought other items, prosecutors put at the top of the list her smuggling of five bottles of perfume to be sold to raise funds for Hamas.

In response to that charge, her lawyer Omara Khamaisi told Reuters outside the court: “Come on, really?”

“I think that in this the case the decision will ultimately be a brave one – to release her, I hope.”

Khamaisi said Ozkan had been denied access to legal counsel for most of her detention and had not been interrogated in Turkish, leading to distortions in the way her answers to questions were recorded.

The indictment did not give specifics on where the alleged offences took place. Khamaisi said Ozkan had spent three days in Jerusalem during her stay.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip under de facto Israeli blockade.

"Our sister"

Asked about Ozkan's case on Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu referred to her as "our sister" and accused Israel of "taking deterrent measures against our citizens travelling to Jerusalem."

"However, we will retaliate against this. Our relations will normalise when Israel stops its inhumane policies," he said without elaborating.