RAMALLAH, Feb 2: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is withdrawing from the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) until its leader, Ahmed Saadat, is released from a Palestinian Authority jail, the group’s second-in-command said Saturday.
“The PFLP is withdrawing from the PLO’s executive committee (PLO-EC) until we have obtained the release of Ahmad Saadat,” Abdul Rahim Mallouh said at a press conference in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
“The continuing detention of our secretary general strikes against Palestinian democracy,” Mallouh said. Mallouh is the PFLP representative on the PLO-EC, which runs the organization’s day-to-day business.
Palestinian intelligence services arrested Saadat on Jan 15 as one of the conditions imposed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to allow Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to leave Ramallah, where he has been blockaded by the Israeli army since Dec 3.
The PFLP claimed responsibility for the October assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi, as a response to Israel’s assassination of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, in August. Sharon has said Arafat must stay put in Ramallah until those involved in Zeevi’s killing are arrested.
Maher Taher, a spokesman for the Damascus-based secular movement, said “the suspension of our movement’s participation in the PLO-EC translates our rejection of the continuing imprisonment of our leader”.
“We think the PLO-EC should also ask Arafat to release our leader,” he said, adding: “Arafat informed us he wants Saadat to hand him over the fighters who assassinated Zeevi, and Arafat knows the PFLP cannot accept such a demand.”
It is the first time one of the Palestinian organizations has withdrawn from the executive committee, whose 18 members, together with the cabinet, make up the Palestinian leadership.
The PLO-EC is dominated by Arafat’s Fatah, which holds five seats. Independent members hold a total of six seats, while the seven nationalist or leftist movements, which include the PFLP, hold another seven.
However, the PFLP’s political weight maakes it a prominent component in the organisation.—AFP