The Nazareth Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday (October 15, 2025) rejected a motion submitted by the defense team of Sheikh Kamal Khatib—composed of Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Meezaan Organization for Human Rights—to cancel the indictment against him, despite serious legal irregularities in the proceedings. Chief among these was the fact that the presiding judge issued her verdict after retiring from the judiciary, in clear violation of the legal authority granted to her by law.
During the hearing, the defense team explained that the motion was based on a fundamental breach of procedural justice and the defendant’s right to a fair trial before a judge who presides over the case from start to finish. The former judge had delivered a summary of the conviction decision on June 30, 2025—the very last day before her retirement on March 30, 2025—without issuing the full written verdict. She later released the detailed version on August 10, after the end of her judicial term, in direct violation of the law, which limits judges to a maximum of three months to complete pending cases before retirement.
The defense argued that this renders the verdict legally invalid and constitutes an irreparable procedural flaw, as the judge who heard the testimonies and evidence was no longer legally authorized to issue rulings after retirement. Continuing the proceedings under such circumstances, they argued, undermines public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary and turns the trial into an unlawful process.
The defense further highlighted the temporal and procedural gap between the oral delivery of the conviction summary without written reasoning and the publication of the extended written verdict one and a half months after the judge’s retirement—an irregularity they said strikes at the heart of fair trial principles.
Despite these arguments, the court rejected the motion, ruling that the steps taken by the former judge do not invalidate the legal process and that reading the summary of the verdict before her retirement was sufficient to confirm that the decision was issued within the legal timeframe. The court further held that releasing the written reasoning afterward did not constitute a substantial defect.
The court issued its decision late in the evening of October 15, 2025, while the written ruling was handed to the defense team the following day.
Previously, on June 30, 2025, the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court had convicted Sheikh Kamal Khatib of “incitement to violence” and “incitement to terrorism”, while acquitting him of the charge of “identifying with a terrorist organization.” The charges stemmed from two Facebook posts and a public sermon he delivered during a High Follow-Up Committee rally amid the events of the “Dignity Uprising” in May 2021.
The prosecution claimed that Khatib’s words and posts constituted “support for terrorist organizations and incitement to violence.” The defense countered that his statements were legitimate expressions of political and religious opinion, amounting to lawful criticism of state policies toward Palestinians and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and thus fell within the scope of the constitutional right to freedom of expression.
Over more than four years of proceedings, the defense presented expert witnesses, political figures, and activists whose testimonies supported this position, emphasizing that Sheikh Khatib’s remarks reflected mainstream political and religious discourse.
In a joint statement, Adalah and Meezaan asserted that the court’s decision legitimizes an unlawful judicial process and entrenches a double standard in handling politically motivated cases. They stressed that any similar procedural flaw in other cases would have led to the immediate annulment of the indictment.
The two organizations further noted that the court ignored the defendant’s constitutional right to have his case followed by the same judge throughout the trial, describing the ruling as part of an escalating political pattern of persecution against Palestinian leaders in Israel.
They concluded that Sheikh Kamal Khatib’s prosecution has, from the outset, been part of a broader campaign of political persecution targeting Palestinian national leaders, and that the court’s refusal to cancel the indictment represents yet another step in legitimizing this dangerous trajectory that threatens lawful political activity and freedom of expression.
