Arafat jails suspected assassins
CHRIS McGREAL
Guardian, 26 April 2002
Bethlehem -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat moved yesterday to end his month-long incarceration within his Ramallah headquarters by putting on trial and sentencing four Palestinian militants wanted by Israel for assassinating a cabinet minister last year.
However, the move was immediately condemned by at least one Palestinian group and described as "strange" by the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who has refused to lift the siege on Mr Arafat's compound.
Mr Sharon did however offer to allow Mr Arafat to leave his headquarters if he agrees to call for an end to violence and to move to Gaza. That in turn was rejected by Mr Arafat.
The makeshift "military court" sentenced the four members of the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who are holed up with Mr Arafat, to between one and 18 years for the killing of the rightwing tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, notorious for his virulent anti-Arab views.
Hamdi Qoraan received the longest sentence. Bassel al-Asmar was given 12 years and Mejdi Rimawi eight years. Ahed Abu Gholma, the head of the PFLP's armed wing was sentenced to one year. The sentences were ratified by Mr Arafat. Mr Sharon dismissed the trial as irrelevant because his government still wants the men handed over.
"It seems a little strange," the prime minister told state radio. "We could have avoided two trials by simply putting them on trial in Israel in the first place. In any case we insist on their extradition and they will be brought to justice in Israel."
The PFLP leadership also denounced the verdicts. It has said Zeevi was murdered in revenge for the killing of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, two months earlier which the Palestinians called a deliberate provocation by Mr Sharon.
With no immediate sign of a breakthrough in Ramallah, there was some progress towards ending the siege at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem where nine Palestinian youths left the building carrying two corpses. The bodies had posed a grave health threat to the 230 people inside, including policemen, clerics and civilians who are struggling with dwindling supplies of food and water.
The youths and corpses were brought out of the church after negotiations resumed yesterday to end the standoff that began three weeks ago when Palestinian fighters fled into the church as the Israeli army invaded Bethlehem. Soldiers laid siege to the shrine which is believed to be the birthplace of Christ. Talks on Wednesday were interrupted by fighting that left at least two Palestinians dead but continued without incident yesterday until two Franciscan monks in black robes left the church.
After a few minutes discussion with soldiers they went back in and re-emerged with the nine youths wearing masks and carrying two makeshift coffins which were taken away by a Red Crescent ambu lance. Among the two dead men was a policeman who left the church to fight a fire at the beginning of the siege and was shot dead by an Israeli sniper.
The Israeli military entered into an unusual alliance with Rupert Murdoch's Fox network and its most controversial reporter during yesterday's developments in Bethlehem, where a 24-hour curfew forced almost everyone to remain in their homes.
Soldiers kept rival television crews behind barricades and threw smoke bombs to prevent them from filming while Geraldo Rivera, the sensationalist former talk-show presenter turned reporter, was given free access to Manger Square. The Fox news bureau chief in Jerusalem is Uri Dan, a close ally and sympathetic biographer of Mr Sharon.
The Israeli military said developments at the Church of the Nativity are evidence that the negotiations are grinding their way towards a resolution but that the siege could still continue for several days.
The army said the departing youths were not among the 30 Palestinian fighters in the building wanted for "terrorist" killings of civilians. The Israelis are demanding the Palestinians surrender for trial or to go into permanent exile in Jordan or the Gaza strip.
Mr Sharon made a similar offer to Mr Arafat when he told yesterday's New York Times that the Palestinian leader is free to leave his compound if he is willing to go to Gaza and call for peace. But a spokesman for Mr Arafat rejected the offer saying he wants to stay near Jerusalem.
Violence continued elsewhere in the occupied territories. An Israeli raid on Hebron left at least two dead, including a member of Mr Arafat's elite guard, Force 17. The Israeli army said it also killed four Palestinians that the military said were trying to infiltrate the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip.