A 26-year-old Palestinian was arrested here Wednesday in connection with an April 19 bombing in the Greek seaport of Patras that killed seven people.
The suspect, Assar al-Nobani, was handed over to the Greek authorities by the local representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Giani Vassiliades, the minister of public order, announced.
The PLO disclaimed prior knowledge of Nobani or of Ahmed Hashaykeh, a Palestinian student killed when the bomb he allegedly was carrying exploded prematurely in a Patras office building last Friday. The other victims were four employees and two customers of a parcel delivery service in the building.
Since the Nobani connection was established, the police have detained 52 other Arabs for questioning.
The PLO said it was cooperating with the authorities, “in an attempt to uncover and impose exemplary punishment on those behind the abhorrent crime that took place in Patras, so that the traditionally friendly relations between the Greek and the Palestinian people are not damaged.”
Observers said the PLO is trying to gain favor with the conservative government, which is not as sympathetic to the Palestinian cause as its Socialist predecessor and which is trying to improve relations with Israel.
Both Nobani and Hashaykeh were reported to belong to the Union of Palestinian Students in Greece and to the Fatah faction of the PLO.
Nobani was expelled from Greece in February, along with some 100 other Arabs suspected of terrorist activities. He was believed to have been involved in a 1985 grenade attack on Palestinian students who belonged to a different faction of the PLO.
He returned with a forged Israeli passport, according to a report the Israeli Embassy here refused to confirm or deny.
Nobani, one of 11 brothers, was born in 1965 in the Israeli-administered territories. He came to Greece in 1984 to study chemistry in Salonika.
After his father and two brothers were arrested by the Israelis in 1989, he was forced to quit school and took a job as a house painter. He was known in Salonika by the alias Yakub Assad.
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