RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - An Israeli military court on Thursday sentenced Ahmed Saadat, the leader of the leftist Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), to 30 years in prison for heading a "terrorist organisation." "Ahmed Saadat is guilty ... because of his position and activities within the (PFLP) terrorist movement," an Israeli army statement said. "Given the status of the accused within this terrorist organisation, given the actions put in place to develop the movement's military structures and given that ... the fighters (of the organisation) were under his command, the court sentences him to 30 years in prison," the statement said. When Israeli forces seized Saadat in March 2006 in a controversial raid on a Jericho prison, he stood accused of planning the 2001 murder of far-right Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi, which was carried out by four the PFLP activists. Prosecutors later decided not to pursue this case against Saadat, instead pressing the charges against four PFLP gunmen who were seized along with him in Jericho. The PFLP slammed the verdict as political. "When the Israelis arrested him, they accused him of having killed Zeevi, but this accusation did not appear in the sentencing which proves that his arrest was political and was not related to security issues," PFLP member Khalida Jarar told AFP. Zeevi, 75 at the time of his death, was shot at a hotel in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem on October 17, 2001.