Ynet reported yesterday on an Al Jazeera interview with Cairo-based Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk, in which he defended the terror group’s widely criticized mass executions late last week. (The interview is embedded below.)

During the interview, Abu Marzouk was asked whether “the information regarding the 18 informers (was) based on real time information, or did you already have the information at hand without conducting the execution, but the decision (to execute) was made today?”

The Hamas official’s answer was surprising: “No, basically there were already sentenced to death, but the execution was done collectively today (Friday).”

“It is possible that this step was taken to satisfy the public in this matter, without considering other legal measures that should have been taken,” Abu Marzouk added.

Abu Marzouk did not object to the executions, but stated that he believed that they should have been carried out “inside the prison yards and not in front of the public.”

Officials of the Palestinian Authority, however, slammed the executions.

Tayib Abdelrahim, the Secretary General of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s office told the Ma’an news agency that the executions were carried out without due process.

“The executions were done in cold blood and according to ‘Hamas law,’ meaning that whoever is not with Hamas is against it,” he added.

Abdelrahim called the killings “random executions of those who Hamas called ‘collaborators.’”

Said Palestinian analyst Abdelmajeed Sweilem, “What Hamas did is just plain wrong. I don’t think a democratic person with ethics would agree with such a practice,” and added that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas opposes capital punishment and “does not believe the alleged collaborators were given a fair trial.” In the PA, the law requires the president’s signature to validate the death penalty.

[Photo: Lilly Green / YouTube ]