Ramallah, May 21 (IANS): The left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) announced that it re-elected Ahmad Saadat, who is serving a term of 30 years' imprisonment in an Israeli prison, as its secretary-general.

The left-wing group said in a statement that the eighth national conference of the PFLP, which ran two days, re-elected Saadat as the group's secretary-general and Jamil Mezher from Gaza as his deputy, reports Xinhua news agency.

The 69-year-old Saadat from the West Bank city of al-Bireh has been the PFLP secretary-general since 2001.

In 2006, he was arrested by the Israeli security forces and accused of being behind the murder of late Israeli minister of tourism Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001.

An Israeli court sentenced him to 30 years in prison.

Founded in December 1967, the PFLP is the second largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) after President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.