TEL AVIV: In a major embarrassment to Israel, Nelson Mandela has agreed to observe the trial of a Palestinian leader formally indicted on Wednesday on charges of murder and terrorism.

A lawyer for Marwan Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian legislative council and secretary general of the Fatah movement in the West Bank, revealed he had been in South Africa last week to invite the former president to the trial.

“He said he was enthusiastic about coming,” Khader Shkirat said. He quoted South Africa’s most famous political prisoner as saying: “What is happening to Barghouti is exactly the same as what happened to me. The government tried to de-legitimise the African National Congress and its armed struggle by putting me on trial.”

Mr Barghouti was arrested in April and is the first senior Palestinian to be put in the dock in the two years of the uprising against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The trial is bound to raise emotions on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide and is seen as a high-risk gamble by Israel to try to paint Mr Barghouti and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, as directly linked to the suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians.

Palestinians see Mr Barghouti as a national hero, and the trial is expected to give him even more support. His lawyers hope to use the trial and the linguistic fluency and charisma of their client to put the Israeli occupation in the dock.

Raising his arms in his first court appearance, at the district court in Tel Aviv, Mr Barghouti said Hebrew: “The intifada will win.” In English, he went on: “I am a peaceful man. I was trying to do everything for peace between the two peoples. I believe the best solution is two states for two peoples.”—Dawn/ The Guardian News Service