Soldiers from the Golani Brigade arrested Mamun Ismail Salame Stut on Tuesday. Stut was one of 1,027 terrorists released in exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in October. Over 100 of them were allowed to return to their homes in Judea and Samaria.
His arrest makes him the first released prisoner to be re-arrested since the Shalit deal.
According to an IDF spokesperson, Stut was arrested for being a security threat in the area of Dura near Hebron.
Stut was first arrested in 2002 and indicted for attempted murder, membership in a terror organization, assembling bombs, and providing asylum to terrorists. An Israeli court sentenced him to 38 years in prison. He was slated to be released in 2040.
Israeli security officials had tried to defend the controversial deal for Shalit’s freedom on the grounds that those released had said they would abandon terror and that none of those released “returned to terror activity.”
Several of the released terrorists, however, have made credible pledges to return to terror activity – as Stut did.
Sources in the IDF Central Command touted the arrest saying it sent “a clear message that people who return to terrorism will pay.”