Police Step Up Search for Killers of a PLO Official

French police today stepped up their search for the killers of a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official but conceded that they still have no clues and have traced no suspects.

The official, Fadel el-Dani, 38, the deputy director of the PLO’s office in Paris, was murdered Friday morning outside his home. He died when the car he was in was demolished by an explosive device.

Police still do not know for certain whether an incendiary device was tossed into his car through an open window or whether a bomb was electronically triggered off as el-Dani was about to drive to his office. The Gaza-born PLO official was the seventh Palestinian official mysteriously killed in Paris during the last 10 years.

Police are following the possibility that an incendiary bomb was thrown into el-Dani’s car and have descriptions of four men who allegedly took part in the attack. Privately, however, police officials admit that this scenario seems highly unlikely and that el-Dani was probably the victim of a remote control device similar to that used in the killings of several of his predecessors.

Ibrahim Suss, the PLO’s Paris director, said after the killing, “I formally accuse Israel.” He said the technique used in killing el-Dani “was similar” to that used to kill the PLO deputy director in Rome last month. In that attack, Kamel Hussein, 42, was killed by a bomb planted under his car seat.

ISRAEL DENIES RESPONSIBILITY

Ambassador Meir Rosenne of Israel emphatically denied any Israeli participation in the killing and said the murder probably was part of the inter-Arab feuding and pointed to the dissident Palestinian terrorist group headed by Abu Nidal as being the probable killers.

Rosenne also denied any Israeli approval for a statement issued by the Jewish Defense League implying that it was responsible for the murder. The JDL statement was sent to several French newspapers and news agencies. Rosenne said “Israel has nothing to do with this and disapproves of any violence from wherever it may come.”

Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson cabled Farouk Kaddumi, the head of the PLO’s political department, who only a week earlier met with President Francois Mitterrand, to express his own and France’s condolences. Both Cheysson and Interior Minister Gaston Deferre promised that France will do all it can to track down the killers and “punish them whatever their nationality or status.”