|
Arafat Rejects Release Order For Saadat Fearing For His Life
 |
| Arafat,
meeting with his Cabinet in Ramallah, overturned a decision to
release Saadat
|
GAZA
CITY, June 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat defied Monday night, June 3, a Palestinian
court order to release the leader of a Palestinian resistance group
that Israelis claim killed an Israeli minister, fearing for his life.
The
Palestinian High Court’s release order for Ahmed Saadat, head of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), clouded the
start of CIA chief George Tenet’s mission to overhaul the
Palestinian security services, and challenged Arafat's own reform
program, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The
Palestinian leadership rejected the court order, fearing Israeli
threats to take the law in its own hands if Saadat was freed.
“Given
the present circumstances, and because of Israeli threats, the
Palestinian leadership cannot order Saadat’s release, as requested
by the High Court,” it said in a statement.
The
Palestinian leadership’s decision not to follow the court’s
recommendation to free Saadat on the grounds that there was no
evidence linking him to Rehavam Zeevi’s slaying also came as Tenet
met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, AFP reported.
Israeli
public radio reported that during their meeting in Jerusalem, Sharon
urged Tenet to put pressure on the Palestinians to keep Saadat in his
Jericho jail, where he has been locked under U.S. and British custody
since early May 2002 so that Arafat could walk free from his five-week
siege in Ramallah.
The
court ruling had prompted Sharon to warn that Israel had taken “all
necessary measures to prevent the release of Ahmed Saadat,” while
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer declared “Israel would be free
to act in accordance with its security requirements” if Saadat was
let go.
Chief
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the ruling placed Arafat in a
“dilemma”, caught between the U.S.-brokered deal with Israel for
Saadat to be jailed and international pressure for legal, political
and security reforms.
“This
is the highest court of the land and I believe its decisions must be
respected,” he said. “On the one hand he has to comply with this
decision. And on the other hand he knows the Israelis ... may abduct
or assassinate” Sadaat if he is released.
Saadat
was arrested by Palestinian security agents in January 2002 under
Israeli pressure and then transferred last month to a Jericho jail
with four PFLP militants found guilty by a Palestinian court of
killing Zeevi in revenge for the assassination two months earlier of
Saadat’s predecessor.
“We
expect the Palestinians will work with the Israelis rather than take
unilateral steps,” U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker had
said shortly before the announcement that the man Israel accuses of
ordering the October 2001 assassination of an Israeli minister would
stay behind bars.
For
the Palestinian public, the court ruling proved a test of Arafat’s
intent to democratize his government after eight years of what many
Palestinians see as corrupt and autocratic rule.
|
