RAMLA Hardline Islamist leader Sheikh Raed Salah on Sunday began serving five months behind bars after being convicted of spitting at an Israeli policeman during a protest in east Jerusalem.

Around 200 supporters of the Israeli Arab leader, who heads the radical wing of the Islamic Movement, accompanied him to a prison in Ramla near Tel Aviv, waving the movement's green flag as well as Palestinian flags, a reporter said.

Salah was convicted of assault for an incident that took place in February 2007 during a demonstration in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, in which court documents said he insulted a border policeman and spat in his face.

Earlier this month, a Jerusalem court reduced his sentence from nine months to five.

The assault, which Salah has always denied, took place during a protest outside the Dung Gate in the southern wall of the Old City where the Israeli authorities were carrying out restoration work near the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

Salah has been detained on a number of occasions, most recently after taking part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla stormed on May 31 by Israeli naval commandos in an operation which left nine Turkish activists dead.—AFP