Palestinians Accuse Israel of Arresting Wife of Jailed PFLP Leader

23/01/2003| IslamWeb

A human rights group accused Israel of arresting the wife of the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmed Saadat, who is jailed in a Palestinian prison under US-British supervision.Khalida Jarar of the Palestinian rights group Ad-Dameer said Abla Saadat had been making her way to a conference in Jordan on Tuesday when she was arrested by Israeli intelligence officials at the Allenby Bridge crossing from the West Bank into the kingdom.

She said Saadat phoned her family at 11:00 am on Tuesday to say she had been arrested by Israeli intelligence. She later made contact with a Palestinian crossing from Jordan who contacted Ad-Dameer.

Jarar said she contacted the Israeli interior ministry to find out where Saadat was being held, but said she received no information on the missing woman's whereabouts.

"All the signs we have so far point to the Israelis having arrested her. They have a duty to say where she is," Jarar told AFP.

The Israeli government declined to comment on the report.

Palestinian police arrested Ahmed Saadat in January 2002 after Israel called for his detention in response to the PFLP's assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi in October 2001.

The PFLP said the attack was in response to Israel's killing of Saadat's predecessor in a helicopter strike.

Saadat was held in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters until Israeli forces besieged the building in March 2002 in response to a series of deadly resistance bombings.

As part of a deal to lift the siege, Arafat agreed to jail Saadat along with four other PFLP members condemned by a makeshift court inside the besieged building for Zeevi's murder.

Under the agreement with Israel, the men and an Arafat aide accused of financing arms smuggling were jailed in a Palestinian jail in Jericho under US and British supervision

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