Is the notorious Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal a patient at Brussels’ Erasmus Hospital? And if so, is his presence there related to the still unsolved murder of Dr. Joseph Wybran, former head of the Belgian Jewish community?
Both are possible, according to Lazard Perez, who succeeded Wybran as president of the Coordinating Committee of Belgian Jewish Organizations, the umbrella body of Belgian Jewry.
“At the present stage, we have no precise information, but the presence of Abu Nidal in the Erasmus Hospital is one assumption among others,” Perez told the European Jewish Press Agency here Wednesday.
He was commenting on a report in the weekly Le Vif-L’Express claiming that “European intelligence services” received reports that Abu Nidal, head of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, has been hospitalized several times at Erasmus Hospital, under a false name, for a heart ailment.
According to the weekly, intelligence specialists are convinced that the information is accurate. An Erasmus Hospital official was quoted as saying he could not rule it out.
The publication quoted the same intelligence sources as saying that Wybran may have been murdered because he recognized Abu Nidal at the hospital.
The Jewish community leader, who headed the hospital’s immunology and hematology department, was found shot to death in the hospital’s parking lot on Oct. 3, 1989. The case is unsolved.
Asked to comment on the liklihood of such a link, Perez remarked “Everything is possible.”
“Everyone knows that Abu Nidal doesn’t move around without bodyguards, that he has no scruples and that he doesn’t hesitate to solve problems by killing,” he observed.
He said Belgian Jewish officials “are in constant contact with the interior minister” on the subject.
The rumored confinement of Abu Nidal in a Brussels hospital followed the embarrassing revelation a week ago that his cohort, Walid Khaled, was visiting the Belgian capital on a tourist visa issued by the Foreign Ministry.
The disclosure that on the eve of the Persian Gulf war, a known terrorist had freedom of the city where the European Community is head-quartered caused two government ministers to resign and put the political future of Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens in jeopardy.
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.
