Syria sentences dissident to 12 years in jail

DAMASCUS, May 10 (Reuters) A Syrian court sentenced leading dissident Kamal Labwani to 12 years in jail today after he was convicted of undermining national security in connection with a visit to the United States.

''This sentence is a medal on my chest. Freedom will be achieved in our homeland,'' Labwani said after the First Criminal Court pronounced the sentence.

The court session coincided with a speech to parliament by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who said Washington was trying to undermine Syria and called for national cohesion.

Labwani was arrested in 2005 at Damascus airport on arrival from the United States, where he had met US officials. He was charged with encouraging a foreign country to invade Syria.

Diplomats said Labwani had been moved from an underground cell to a better one after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised his case along with that of other jailed dissidents when she met Assad during a visit to Damascus last month.

But Pelosi's efforts failed to prevent a tough sentence against Labwani, they said.

''Syria has invited the wrath of the Democrats with this sentence. Congress, as well as the administration, can target it,'' one European diplomat said, referring to US sanctions imposed on Syria since 2004.

Ammar al-Qurabi, head of Syria's National Human Rights Association, said the ''oppressive'' sentence was the harshest against political activists during Assad's rule.

Assad briefly allowed public debate and political forums during the ''Damascus Spring'', which lasted for around a year after he succeeded his late father, Hafez al-Assad, in July 2000.

Labwani, who was active in the short-lived political ferment, was jailed from 2001 to 2004.

Maamoun al-Homsi, a former Syrian political prisoner, said in Beirut that European governments should withdraw their ambassadors from Damascus ''if the regime continues this style of arrests and barbaric trials''.

A report by Syria's National Organisation for Human Rights said scores of political activists, including Internet bloggers and Kurdish nationalists, have been arrested in a campaign against dissidents launched last year.

Anwar al-Bunni, a leading human rights lawyer, was sentenced to five years in prison a few weeks ago for criticising government policy towards Lebanon.

REUTERS AK PM2100