Marwan Barghouti

Marwan Barghouti (born 1959) is a Palestinian political figure and a leader of the Fatah movement who has been imprisoned in Israel since 2002. Polls of Palestinians repeatedly identify him as the most popular potential successor to the presidency of the Palestinian Authority.

Barghouti was born in the West Bank village of Kobar, north of Ramallah. He joined Fatah as a teenager and was first detained by Israeli authorities at fifteen. He earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in international relations from Birzeit University, and his student-union work made him a recognised organiser during the First Intifada, which led to his deportation to Jordan in 1987.

After the Oslo Accords he returned to the West Bank and was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996 as the representative for Ramallah. During the Second Intifada he led the Tanzim, Fatah's grassroots militia. He was captured by Israeli forces in Ramallah in 2002 and convicted in an Israeli civilian court of involvement in attacks that killed five people; he refused to mount a defence, arguing that the court had no jurisdiction over him.

From prison he co-authored the 2006 Prisoners' Document, which proposed a Palestinian national consensus on a two-state framework. He has been re-elected to Fatah's Central Committee while incarcerated and is serving five life sentences plus forty years.

The given name Marwan is an Arabic masculine name of long standing, often connected to the fragrant marw plant or interpreted as 'solid stone' or 'flint'. It was borne by two early Umayyad caliphs and has remained common across the Arab world. He has carried it through more than two decades behind bars.