VARIOUS: CIA DIRECTOR VISITS ISRAEL AS PALESTINIAN COURT ORDERS RELEASE OF JAILED RADICAL LEADER AHMED SA'ADAT

Record ID: 400559

  • Title: VARIOUS: CIA DIRECTOR VISITS ISRAEL AS PALESTINIAN COURT ORDERS RELEASE OF JAILED RADICAL LEADER AHMED SA'ADAT
  • Date: 3rd June 2002
  • Summary: (U3) BEN-GURION AIRPORT, TEL-AVIV, ISRAEL (JUNE 3, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS, CONVOY OF VEHICLES TRANSPORTING U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY DIRECTOR GEORGE TENET, DEPARTING BEN GURION AIRPORT (3 SHOTS) 0.33 (U3) RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (JUNE 3, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 2. VARIOUS, PALESTINIAN INFORMATION MINISTER YASSER
  • Embargoed: 18th June 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BEN GURION AIRPORT, TEL-AVIV, ISRAEL / NABLUS, RAMALLAH, WEST BANK / JERUSALEM / GAZA
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVA43UCLV8J6SIS2YVI0PN7PQ5FE
  • Story Text: A visit by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
    director George Tenet to the Middle East has been complicated
    by a Palestinian court order for the release of a jailed
    radical leader wanted by Israel.



    CIA director George Tenet flew into Tel Aviv's Ben
    Gurion airport on Monday (June 3) to meet Israeli security
    officials before talks with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the
    evening, Israeli security sources said.

    One Israeli source said Tenet, who last year oversaw a
    short-lived truce-to-talks deal between the sides, would
    "listen and learn".

    In meetings with Palestinian officials set for Tuesday
    (June 4), Tenet was expected to press U.S. demands for a
    revamp of their numerous security services, which Israel has
    accused of allowing and at times playing a role in attacks on
    Israelis.

    Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and his aides have
    denied blame for militants' violence against Israeli
    civilians.

    Commenting on Tenet's arrival in the region, Palestinian
    information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said, "If Mr. Tenet is
    only coming to discuss the arrangements for rebuilding the
    security of the Palestinian Authority, I think his mission
    will not succeed".

    "To build security means, first of all, to create
    conditions for real security and this cannot be achieved if
    the siege on all of the Palestinians cities continue and if
    the incursions inside area A and all Palestinian territories
    continue and if the confiscation of land, the demolition of
    houses, the killing which take place everyday against
    Palestinians civilians who try to reach their homes or their
    schools or universities or hospitals continue as well," added
    Rabbo.

    The Palestinian Authority's High Court on Monday ordered
    the release of a radical leader who was jailed under an
    internationally brokered deal that ended an Israeli siege of
    Yasser Arafat's headquarters.

    Israel has responded angrily to the decision to free Ahmed
    Sa'adat, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of
    Palestine (PFLP), who it says was behind the assassination of
    Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi last October.

    Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who denied a connection
    between the visit of Tenet to the region and the Palestinian
    court order to release Ahmed Sa'adat said, "We will take all
    the necessary steps that he (Ahmed Sa'adat) will not be
    released".

    Sa'adat is one of six Palestinians being held in a prison
    in the West Bank city of Jericho under British and U.S.

    supervision as part of an internationally brokered deal that
    ended Israel's five-week-long military siege of Arafat's
    Ramallah headquarters.

    The High Court's decision still needs to be ratified by
    Arafat. It was not immediately clear when he would be released
    or how the British and American wardens posted as observers at
    the jail would react if he was freed.

    Israel's military siege of Arafat's Ramallah headquarters
    was ended when Sa'adat, four other PFLP members accused of
    assassinating Zeevi and a senior Arafat aide accused by Israel
    of smuggling weapons to the Palestinian territories were
    transferred to the Jericho prison.

    Unarmed British and American guards have been posted at
    the Jericho jail to observe the imprisonment of Sa'adat and
    the other five prisoners. But Palestinian prison guards are
    the actual jailers.

    The three-judge court in the Gaza Strip said there was no
    evidence linking Sa'adat to the assassination of Zeevi last
    October. The PFLP claimed the killing of Zeevi and said it was
    to avenge Israel's slaying of Sa'adat's predecessor last
    August.

    "The court has reached a decision regarding Ahmed Sa'adat.

    It ordered that he be immediately released," Judge Hamdan
    al-A'badla read out in the Gaza courtroom.

    Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said Arafat
    should ratify the decision and release Sa'adat.

    In the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday Israeli forces
    rounded up scores of Palestinians in what military sources
    described as a hunt for militants behind attacks on Israelis.

    They said most of those detained on Monday were questioned and
    quickly released.

    Armoured vehicles swept into the Ein Beyt Ilma refugee
    camp in the northwestern corner of the city of Nablus imposing
    curfews and conducting house-to-house searches.

    Soldiers on loudspeakers ordered all males between the
    ages of 15 and 43 to gather at designated spots in the refugee
    camp. Many of the Palestinian men were blindfolded,
    handcuffed and taken away from the area in buses and military
    trucks.

    Israeli soldiers also blew up two buildings which the army
    said had been found to contain large munitions caches.




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