BEIRUT: The Military Tribunal sentenced Thursday a Shiite Muslim preacher – who headed an anti-Israel resistance group – to five years in prison for collaborating with Israel, a judicial source told The Daily Star.

The sentence against Sheikh Mohammad Ali Husseini was handed down by the tribunal headed by Brigadier Nizar Khalil.

Husseini was convicted of “contacting the Israeli enemy and its intelligence service, dealing with other foreign states that have security dealings with Israel and possessing unlicensed military arms,” the source said.

Husseini, who was also stripped of his civil rights, ran the Arab-Islamic Resistance movement and claimed responsibility for firing rockets toward Israel three years ago.

Husseini was arrested in May by Lebanese intelligence personnel at his apartment in the Riz complex, east of the southern port city of Tyre and taken to the Defense Ministry in Yarze, east Beirut, for questioning.

The Lebanese intelligence unit also confiscated a number of computers, communication equipment and documents from Husseini’s home. Reporters based in south Lebanon claim Husseini – who is critical of both Hezbollah and the Amal Movement of Speaker Nabih Berri – carried out a simulation of a military maneuver in 2008.