Arafat’s guards condemned to die

JERUSALEM, July 3 (JTA) — A Palestinian military court has sentenced to death three members of Yasser Arafat’s elite bodyguard unit for the murder of a Gaza man. The victim had lived next door to one of the defendants, a senior officer in Force-17, and had made a remark about the officer’s wife. If the sentences are carried out, the three convicted officers will be brought before a firing squad. More than 10 people have been sentenced to death in Palestinian courts since the self-rule authority came to power three years ago. But none of the sentences has been carried out.