JERUSALEM, OCT 1: Israel freed its most prominent Palestinian prisoner, the jailed founder of the Islamic Militant Movement (Hamas) today and he was flown to Jordan.An Army statement said Sheikh Ahmed Yassin had been pardoned because of worsening health. He was flown in a Jordanian medical helicopter to Amman in answer to a request by Jordan's King Hussein to take steps to help Middle East peacemaking move forward, the statement said.Hamas leaders called the action ``expulsion'' and assailed Israel for sending Yassin, who is from Gaza, away from his Palestinian home.Jailed by Israel in 1989, the wheelchair-bound Yassin, who is in his 60s, was serving a life sentence for ordering attacks by Hamas guerrillas against Israeli targets.A senior Hamas figure in Jordan, Musa Abu Marzook, said Yassin had arrived at the King Hussein Medical Centre in Amman early today. He declined to comment on Yassin's condition.The armed wing of Hamas, which is implacably opposed to Israel's peace deals with the PLO, has killed scores of people in a series of suicide bombings. Twenty Israelis died in the last two attacks, both in Jerusalem, on July 30 and September 4.Meanwhile, Palestinians unanimously condemned Israel's decision on Yassin.The Palestinian Authority of Yasser Arafat and its Hamas opponents found commoncause in saying Yassin's deportation nullified his release.``Israel has deported, not released Yassin, who has a right to return to his family,'' said Ahmad Abdel Rahman, secretary-general of Palestinian Authority.``We condemn the policy of deportation which Israel uses against the Palestinian nation,'' Rahman told newsmen.The Israeli Army said he was released on the recommendation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in response to an appeal from Jordan's King Hussein for ``positive steps'' to help the faltering peace process.Yassin's son, Abdel Ghani Ahmed Yassin, said the family was ``shocked and very saddened'' by the deportation and warned that ``Israel will be responsible for everything that happens with my father because he is very ill.''``My father rejected deportation from the beginning,'' he said.``This is not a positive step at all,'' added Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a senior figure in the Hamas.``Since he was arrested, Israel has offered to deport Yassin from the country but he chose to stay in prison rather than be deported, even though he was tortured to accept deportation,'' Rantisi told newsmen.The Israeli announcement of Yassin's release made no mention of Arafat, who since he returned to the Gaza Strip in 1994 to head up the interim autonomy administration in the Palestinian territories has appealed for the cleric's freedom.
