Israeli court jails Palestinian militant over 2001 assassination

Feb 5, 2008, 13:17 GMT

Jerusalem - An Israeli court Tuesday sentenced a Palestinian militant involved in an assassination of an Israeli minister in 2001 to life and another 20 years in prison, Israel Radio reported.

Basil al-Asmar, of the radical left Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was convicted last month of murder, attempted murder and membership in a 'terrorist organization,' for his role in the assassination of then Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi and in additional attacks.

Al-Asmar helped plan and carry out the assassination in Jerusalem's Hyatt hotel in October 2001, although he was not the one to pull the trigger.

Hamdi Qur'an, another PFLP militant and the one who shot Ze'evi, was sentenced in December to two life terms and another 100 years in prison.

Reading out their sentence, the judges at the Jerusalem District Court said the assassination of the minister constituted not only the murder of a man, but also an assault on a 'symbol of the state and its sovereignty.'

The PFLP's secretary-general, Ahmed Sa'adat, is still on trial in Israel, accused of ordering the assassination.

Sa'adat, Qur'an, al-Asmar and two other members of the PFLP cell which planned the killing of Ze'evi were nabbed by Israel in a raid on a Palestinian Authority (PA) prison in Jericho in March 2006.

Israel said it launched the raid, which culminated in the surrender of inmates after a more than nine-hour siege, after learning the PA planned to release the Israeli minister's killers.

The assassination of Ze'evi, of the ultra-right National Union faction, came in revenge for Israel's killing of PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa in an August 2001 targeted Israeli helicopter strike in Ramallah. That killing was in turn a retaliation for a string of bomb and shooting attacks by the PFLP.