Amnesty laments death of Palestinian torture group leader

One might expect a global human rights organisation to wholeheartedly condemn a man involved in the brutal torture of a teenage soldier. Not the Amnesty International of 2024, it seems. On Monday night, the charity instead lamented the death of Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa, tweeting:

The death in custody of Walid Daqqa, a 62-year-old Palestinian writer who was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails after 38 years of imprisonment, is a cruel reminder of Israel’s disregard for Palestinians’ right to life.

Sorry? Amnesty International couldn’t possibly be talking about the same Walid Daqqa who, in 1984, led a group that abducted, tortured, castrated and mutilated Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam — before it shot the 19-year-old and dumped his body, could it? Er, well, it is. 

In a dedicated article on its website, Amnesty goes on to describe the death of the ‘writer’ in Israeli custody as ‘heart-wrenching’, highlighting calls for his urgent release on ‘humanitarian grounds’ following a cancer diagnosis.