Status: Incarcerated
Hamas terrorist Mastermind Abbas al-Sayed was responsible for the 2001 Sharon shopping mall terror attack, in which 35 Israelis died and hundreds were wounded, and the 2002 Park Hotel bombing in Netanya that left 30 dead and 140 wounded.
Al-Sayed was convicted in 2006 in the Tel Aviv District Court and sentenced to 35 consecutive life sentences for premeditated murder, causing grievous bodily harm with aggravated intent, and membership in Hamas, a terrorist organization.
He appealed his conviction, claiming that the Israel Security Agency and Israeli police coerced his confessions during his interrogations. The Israeli Supreme Court rejected those claims and upheld his conviction.
by the Israeli Police
"Question: From where did you get the monies that you used to pay for the weapons?
Response: The monies that I paid for the price of the weapons was able to achieve through a bank transfer to my personal account at the Arab Bank in Tulkarem. And these monies were sent from America to a bank account in dollars in coordination with Abu Alanur and he is from the leaders of Hamas in Syria. And the monies would arrive to finance Hamas’ political activity, only in this way. I on my own initiative first used the money to purchase weapons for military activities under the auspices of Hamas the Al-Qassam Brigades. And I received the monies in monthly payments, each payment was for thirteen thousand dollars and the last time I received monies was in February 2002, when I contacted [them] by sending letters and mobile phone messages SMS, I contacted Muhanad Taher, a resident of Nablus about 30 years old, single and military activist in the Hamas movement and he is one of those responsible in Hamas and I asked him to send me 10,000 dollars to my account in Arab Bank in Tulkarem."
Before his arrest, al-Sayed had served as a leader of Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Tulkarem, plotting a series of suicide attacks. His cell obtained explosive belts, recruited men to carry out the bombings and hired drivers to take them to Israel.
Prior to dispatching Abd el-Baset Awda to Netanya on March 27, 2002 to blow himself up at the Park Hotel, al-Sayed helped Awda write his “will” and then made a video of him reading it.
Awda detonated his explosive belt in Netanya’s Park Hotel as guests gathered for a Passover Seder in one of the deadliest terror attacks of the Second Intifada.
