As Palestinian security continued to pursue a Hamas activist who allegedly plotted to kill Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Jordan denied that it was harboring the fugitive.
Jordanian Information Minister Marwan Muashar said in Amman that the accused man, identified as Ziad Qishawi, was not in Jordan and that the state registrar had no record of him.
The assassination plot came to light as Arafat asked the Palestine National Council to amend those portions of its charter that call for the destruction of Israel.
The Interim Agreement signed in September in Washington calls for a change in the charter. Arafat has promised Israel on more than one occasion that it would be amended.
“I call upon your council to amend all the articles in the national charter which contradict the ‘peace of the brave’ that we signed” with Israel, Arafat said Monday in front of the council’s opening session in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this week, Palestinian police announced that they had uncovered a plot by Hamas fundamentalists to assassinate Arafat when he made a scheduled visit to a Gaza Strip cemetery April 28.
Col. Tawfiq Jaber, who heads Palestinian intelligence in Gaza, said two parcels of explosives and two mines had been prepared for the attack.
Palestinian secret service officials said the militants had been hiding in a central Gaza neighborhood.
Jaber presented six of seven Hamas members who had been arrested in connection with the plot.
One of the men, identified only as Motaz, said he was asked three months ago by Qishawi to carry out the assassination.
The group said they had turned themselves in to Palestinian officials after rejecting the assassination plot.
In Amman, Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Ghosheh denied any knowledge of the alleged plotter.
He charged the Palestinian Authority with trying to divert attention from this week’s PNC meeting in Gaza.
Ghosheh said the goal of the meeting was “to alter clauses in the national charter that stipulate the rights of the Palestinian people on their national soil.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
