French Court Frees Daoud on Technicality in Request

Israeli Ambassador Mordechai Gazit lodged verbal protests with the French Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Justice today over the release of Abu Daoud, the Palestinian terrorist believed to have planned the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre. A strong formal protest is expected to be submitted by the Israeli government to the Foreign Ministry tomorrow.

Daoud, arrested here last Friday, was freed today after a four judge panel ruled his detention illegal. Police escorted him to the airport where he boarded an Algerian Airline flight to Algiers. Only yesterday, Israel had requested French authorities to hold Daoud in preventive detention pending a formal extradition request that was expected to be filed shortly.

The West German government was to decide tomorrow whether to submit its own extradition request on the basis of the Munich attack in which II Israeli athletes and a German policeman were slain.

The judges, who deliberated less than 20 minutes, based their decision to release Daoud on a technicality. The court ruled that the Bavarian State police request for the terrorist’s arrest–which reached Paris some 12 hours after he was apprehended by agents of the DST, France’s counter-espionage agency–was “incomplete” because it was not accompanied by an official government request forwarded through diplomatic channels. They also ruled that Israel’s request to detain Daoud was legally unfounded. There was no immediate elaboration of the reasons for that ruling.

The court’s decision complied with almost identical requests by Daoud’s defense attorney and the State Attorney General for Daoud’s immediate release. Arab diplomats and pro-Palestinian elements here had been clamoring for Daoud’s release from the moment his arrest was announced.

SEE POLITICAL REASONS

Observers here believe the court’s ruling was made for political reasons to enable the French government to avoid a crisis with the Arab world which France has been assiduously wooing since the end of the Algerian war in 1962. But it is expected to impose a severe strain on Franco-Israeli relations that have been improving of late.

Under the Franco-Israeli extradition treaty which both governments ratified in 1971, Israel had 60 days to file an extradition request. Under French law, Daoud could be held for 20 days and released only if no extradition request was filed. Israel did not ask immediately for Daoud’s extradition because its legal authorities needed time to prepare an airtight case based on evidence of his involvement in the Munich massacre and other terrorist acts.

Meanwhile, a new political scandal appeared in the making here because of indications that Daoud was arrested without the prior knowledge of Interior Minister Michel Poniatovsky and other members of the government. Some sources are claiming that the DST acted on its own initiative.