Syria accuses Israel of assassinating ex-MP

Syria has accused Israeli forces on Saturday of killing Medhat Al-Saleh, a former member of Syrian parliament who had spent 12 years in jail in Israel, state-run television Al-Ekhbariya quoted the cabinet as saying.

Al-Saleh "was martyred as the Israeli enemy targeted him with fire while returning home" on Saturday in Ain al-Tineh, a village inside Syria that is near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.

Local sources told The New Arab's Arabic-language publication Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, that Al-Saleh was assassinated by a sniper's bullet while he was standing on the balcony of his house in Ain al-Tineh.

The Syrian government denounced "this cowardly criminal act".

"The Israeli criminal assassination... is an act of terror," tweeted Hussam Edin Aala, the Syrian representative to the UN.

An Israeli military spokesperson said the military does not comment on foreign reports.

The government said Saleh had spent 12 years in prison in Israel after being jailed in 1985 on charges of "resistance" to Israeli authorities. He later served as an MP in the Syrian parliament before he was assigned as head of office for the occupied Syrian Golan affairs.

Following his release from Israeli prison in 1997, Al-Saleh worked to establish a committee to support prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons.

He was elected as a member of the Syrian parliament in 1998 as a representative for the occupied Golan Heights.

Al-Saleh served as an MP until 2005, after which he was appointed as the head of office for the Golan Heights portfolio by President of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad.