"I think Marwan Barghouti is a terrorist," said the Israeli prison officer. "But in the end, he must be released"

Last Sunday I met the man who could turn out to be the Nelson Mandela, or at least the Gerry Adams, of the Middle East. To the Israeli government, Marwan Barghouti is a terrorist, convicted on five counts of murder. To Palestinians he's their hero, the only man who could replace Yasser Arafat. From a tiny, white-walled cell in a prison north of Tel Aviv, Barghouti was campaigning for the Palestinian elections. After months of negotiations with the Israeli authorities and his advisers, Channel 4 News was allowed into the jail to interview him.

I first met Barghouti during the intifada in 2001. A Ramallah street leader in a leather jacket, he was half the height of the youths lobbing rocks at Israeli soldiers, but the crowd parted for him. Prison has made him even more powerful and popular. Aged 46, Barghouti topped the list for Fatah, Arafat's old faction. The current president, Mahmoud Abbas, is seen as an interim figure - everyone is waiting for Barghouti.

As we entered, the muezzin wailed through the prison wing. After three years in solitary confinement, Barghouti now lives with 118 other Palestinian prisoners. The block is clean and functional, each cell with a blue metal door and bars across a narrow window overlooking a courtyard. Dressed in a brown prison uniform, Barghouti was talking to other prisoners outside his cell; normally he is locked in for 21 hours a day. I introduced myself, and he turned his back, uninterested. "I saw your wife yesterday," I said. He swung round. "Where? How is she doing? Is she all right?" "She was campaigning in Hebron," I said. "She's doing well."

I had met Fadwa Barghouti twice in the previous few days. A

plump, unglamorous figure, she looked drained. For three years,

she was not permitted to see her husband, but now she can make

regular visits. It is her job to carry his message to the electorate.

Barghouti invited me into the cell, and we sat on his low bed opposite the bunks where his cell mates sleep. Pictures of his family were taped to the walls: Fadwa and his four children, including his eldest son, Qassam, also in jail. From a box under the bed, he pulled out books in English, Arabic and Hebrew, which he speaks fluently: tomes on the Middle East - Dennis Ross, Edward Said - poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, the writings of Paolo Coelho. He is studying leadership, reading

the autobiographies of Bill Clinton and Margaret Thatcher and

the most recent Hebrew biography of his nemesis, Ariel Sharon.

"We need two leaders who are ready to take decisions, critical decisions, to take risks and to decide, from the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, " Barghouti said, his English clear and deliberate. "I think that my people are ready for peace with the Israeli people."

A poster plastered all over Gaza and the West Bank shows him entering court in 2004, raising his handcuffed wrists in defiance. "I don't recognise Israel's right to sentence a Palestinian member of parliament," he said. The Israelis produced documents which indicated that he had approved payments to suicide bombers, but - while refusing to enter a plea - he denies responsibility for the murder of Israeli civilians. He maintains the line he held before being arrested: that the Palestinians have the right to resist occupation, but should not kill civilians.

"No one can justify killing civilians - children, women, anywhere in this world," he said. "They should be outside of the game. In Palestine or in Israel." Israel's assassination of Palestinian militants and its continued occupation had, he said, stymied a debate on suicide bombings. "More than any time, the Palestinians were very close to taking a decision on that. But Israelis in the intifada killed 800 Palestinian children."

One of Barghouti's closest associates in prison is Sheikh Abdel Nasser Issa, from the new generation of Hamas leaders. It was the Hamas prisoners who persuaded the leadership outside to participate in the elections; Barghouti's influence is believed to have been essential. "Hamas is part of the Palestinian people and they have the right to participate," he said. "I welcome this historic decision from Hamas, because it means they are ready to work according to the rules of democracy."

Many Israelis are not convinced. Hamas has a ceasefire now - again partly because of Barghouti's influence - but its official position is that it has the right to use any means to destroy Israel. Yet even Israeli politicians understand that Barghouti has a greater chance of influencing Hamas to accept a two-state solution than any other Palestinian leader.

As we left, I talked to one of the prison officers.

"Before I worked here, I only saw Palestinians through the sights of my gun," he said. "But here I talk to them, especially Barghouti. I think he's a terrorist. I disagree with him. But in the end he must be released. After all, you make peace with your enemy, not your friend."

Barghouti shrugs. "You know what happened in South Africa. Finally they went to Mandela and negotiated. In Ireland, they talked. Finally. And they released all the prisoners. The British government considered them terrorists. I think we are freedom fighters. I see myself as a Palestinian resident who will exercise his right in a Palestinian democratic state. This is my dream."

Lindsey Hilsum is international editor for Channel 4 News

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website