Lecturer tells how group was imprisoned on Israel visit

A CITY lecturer who was arrested and held for days without charge while on a visit to Israel has spoken of the mistreatment he says he and his companions were subjected to.

• Mick Napier was held in a mobile prison

Mick Napier was seized shortly after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv along with around a dozen friends and colleagues travelling to Bethlehem.

The 64-year-old founder of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign was on a trip organised by the Al-Rowwad Cultural Centre in the city.

The Edinburgh Napier University languages lecturer says he, along with 12 other Britons, was detained on Friday and dragged into a mobile prison.

Mr Napier, from Liberton, who has visited Israel 15 times but has never had any trouble before, arrived back in Edinburgh on Monday night.

He was concerned friend Frank Thomas, a recently retired Scottish Government statistician from Corstorphine, would be kept in detention, although last night he heard that the 66-year-old would soon be returned to the UK.

Mr Napier said: "When we got to passport control they asked where we were going, and when we said we were heading to Bethlehem, security were immediately called.

"We were taken to a back room in the airport and there was around 40 people in the room altogether, including others who were destined for the same place."

Mr Napier said when he told his fellow travellers not to hand over their passports, as the Foreign Office advises when travelling to Israel, he and another young man from Marseille were dragged out of the room, shackled and led into a prison van.

Mr Napier said: "It was one metre across, very cramped and stiflingly hot, and Frank was in the same section as me. One young guy was trying to suck air through the walls. We were kept like this for three hours."

Mr Napier said the group was initially refused water for several hours, before eventually being given bottles of it and taken to a detention facility.

He said: "From the moment we were seized until we were put back on the plane to Luton, we were never told why we had been detained.

"We had no idea how long we were going to be held like this, and so after a day of asking for our phone call and the reason for arrest, we said we would go on hunger strike."

Mr Napier said that late the same night, hearings were set up in the courtyard of the detention centre, where the detainees were intimidated by six soldiers.

He said: "We were told we were guilty of something, but we weren't told what.

"The Israeli police minister described us as hooligans, despite the fact there were people aged up to 83 in our group. We were there to plant olive trees."