 A Palestinian leader seized by Israel in a raid on a West Bank jail denied any responsibility for his group's 2001 assassination of an Israeli Cabinet Minister, his lawyer said yesterday. "I reject the accusations," Ahmed Saadat was quoted as saying by his attorney, who met the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) chief at an Israeli detention center in Jerusalem.
Israel has said Saadat, taken into custody during a raid on a Jericho prison on Tuesday, gave the orders for the killing of Cabinet Minister Rehavam Zeevi. The PFLP said it shot Zeevi to avenge Israel's killing of one of its leaders. Four members of a PFLP cell convicted by a Palestinian court in 2002 of carrying out the assassination were also seized by Israeli troops at the jail after a daylong siege. Saadat was jailed by the Palestinians in connection with the assassination but was never convicted of the charge. |