RAMALLAH, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Popular Front to Liberate Palestine (PFLP) on Thursday condemned an Israeli court decision to send its chief Ahmed Sa'adat to 30 years imprisonment in Israeli jail.

    A PFLP spokesman said in a statement that "the Israeli court's sentence is illegal and contradicts with international laws," adding "Sa'adat was sentenced to 30 years in Israeli jails for political reasons and not for any other crime."

    Sa'adat was brought for trial to an Israeli military court in the West Bank on Thursday morning.

    Sa'adat, in his mid-50s, told the court before the sentence was announced that "I don't recognize your court, which is an extension to an illegal military occupation that occupied out lands. You laws are worse than the Nazi laws."

    Mahmer el-Taher, a senior PFLP leader, said in a statement that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is held responsible because it is the one that arrested him before his detention by the Israeli army.

    "The sentence is political and Sa'adat was sent to 30 years in prison only because he is the chairman of the Popular Front and not because he was involved in any military action," said el-Taher.

    Sa'adat was arrested by PNA security forces in 2002, and was then sent to a Palestinian jail in the West Bank town of Jericho. An Israeli army force nabbed him during an raid into the prison in2004.

    In January 2006, Sa'adat was elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) dominated by the Islamic Hamas movement been which has been ruling the Gaza Strip since mid June last year.

    Sa'adat's group was responsible for killing Israeli Minister of Tourism Rahba'am Ze'evi in a hotel in Jerusalem in response to the killing of its former Chairman Abu Ali Mustafa by Israel in 2001.