Israel sentences Spanish woman for aiding banned group

An Israeli military court has handed down a reduced sentence to a Spanish woman who admitted to raising funds for a West Bank charity that were diverted to the banned Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli military court on Wednesday handed down a reduced sentence to a Spanish woman who admitted in a plea bargain to raising funds for a West Bank charity that were diverted to a banned militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Juana Ruiz Sánchez was sentenced to 13 months in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 shekels, or roughly $16,000. With credit for time already served, she could be released in the coming weeks.

Israel has tried to seize on the conviction as proof that it was justified in branding six Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist groups last month -- all due to alleged connections to the PFLP.

But Ruiz’s employer, the Health Work Committees, was not among those six groups. And in the plea bargain, she said she was unaware of the alleged fund-raising scheme and she was not implicated in any militant activities by the PFLP.