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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (4387)	5/16/2002 2:17:19 PM
From: art slott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

Assassins Get Small West Bank Cell By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 1:44 p.m. ET JERICHO, West Bank (AP) -- The six men Yasser Arafat imprisoned as part of a U.S.-brokered deal for his release from Israeli confinement have been spending their days in a whitewashed, two-story prison, guarded by British and U.S. wardens. Four prisoners convicted of assassinating Israel's tourism minister last year share a stuffy cell, while their commander and a suspected weapons smuggler, who have not yet been tried, have air conditioned rooms with a connected living area. Advertisement On Thursday, two weeks after the six were transferred to the desert town of Jericho from Arafat's besieged West Bank headquarters in Ramallah, there was little activity outside the building. Burly Palestinian policemen guarded the white steel gates, but the foreign jailers were not visible. The secrecy surrounding the imprisonment has fed rumors in town -- including a tale that one of the detainees, accused smuggler Fuad Shobaki, continues to get a daily supply of $10 cigars in prison. The detainees are not allowed visitors. Israel had restricted Arafat to Ramallah since December, gradually tightening his confinement. Starting on March 29, the beginning of an Israeli military offensive, Arafat was restricted for 34 days to a few rooms, with the rest of his compound taken over by Israeli troops. Israel conditioned Arafat's release on the extradition of the four men accused of assassinating Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in a Jerusalem hotel in October. Instead, Arafat had the four -- Hamdi Quran, Basel al Asmar, Majdi Rimawi and Ahmed Gholmy -- tried by a makeshift court in his besieged headquarters. Palestinian security officials served as judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers. The defendants, belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical PLO faction, were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to 18 years. The two other men staying with Arafat -- and also wanted by Israel -- were PFLP chief Ahmed Saadat and Shobaki, accused by Israel of bankrolling a foiled plan to smuggle 50 tons of weapons by sea from Iran to the Palestinian Authority in January. In a U.S.-brokered deal that led to Arafat's release from confinement May 1, Israel agreed to have all six locked up in Jericho, under U.S. and British supervision. Shobaki and Saadat share a living room in the Jericho jail and have their own air conditioned bedrooms; in summer, Jericho is one of the hottest places on earth. Their lawyer, Khader Shkirat, would not confirm the cigar rumor, but said Shobaki and Saadat watch television and read newspapers. The four Zeevi assassins share a cell with four beds placed side by side, Shkirat said. They have no air conditioning, no television and no form of entertainment, he said. They while away the long days talking to each other. One of them, Gholmy, is confined to his bunk after breaking both legs trying to escape Palestinian security when he was first arrested earlier this year. ``They have no access to their families, the British (guards) monitor everyone who comes in and out, whoever wants to visit has to apply ahead and is searched thoroughly,'' Shkirat said. The British officials who have supervised the imprisonment include a former commander of Northern Ireland's notorious Maze prison, the now-defunct lockup where IRA fighters were jailed. About a dozen British and U.S. jailers work every day, mainly in administrative duties and retire to an east Jerusalem hotel when off-duty. Their main purpose is to ensure the prisoners remain secluded in ``appropriate conditions,'' a British official said on condition of anonymity. Shobaki's trial in absentia was postponed Thursday because two of the judges were unable to cross an Israeli military checkpoint, said court officials in Ramallah. Saadat has yet to be tried. Officials close to Arafat said that the Palestinian leader initially assured Saadat that he would be released within 10 days, after a ruling by the Palestinian attorney general. However, the ruling has not been made, and there were no signs that Saadat's release was near.