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CNN Live Today

Suspects in Murder of Israeli Official Tried, Convicted

Aired April 25, 2002 - 14:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: From Bethlehem now, a bit of movement in a longstanding stalemate. Nine Palestinian civilians, all said to be under the age of 18, walked out of the besieged church today. They carried with them the bodies of two other Palestinians. The largest group to leave in the more than three-week-old standoff with Israeli forces.

Negotiators working to bring it to an end met for another round of talks today. Also, four Palestinian suspects in the assassination of an Israeli official were tried and convicted today, something Israel has been demanding now for months. But the case came before a hastily arranged Palestinian tribunal, which the Israelis say is nothing more than a kangaroo court. Mike Hanna now with more on this.

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MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A makeshift courtroom in Yasser Arafat's besieged compound. The judge, a security officer with no previous legal experience. The attorney for the defense, a policeman selected from those holed up with the Palestinian leader. The accused, four men held responsible for the assassination of Israel's tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, who were being held in the prison compound when the Israeli forces first surrounded it at the end of last year.

The court sentenced the four to terms ranging from 18 to one year's imprisonment. The sentence, approved by Yasser Arafat, in the presence of the foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey, who were allowed by Israel to visit the Palestinian leader.

Afterwards, the two ministers met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who made clear he still insists that the four accused in the killing stand trial in Israel, along with a fifth man also in Arafat's Ramallah compound, who has been accused by Israel of supplying funds to those carrying out terror attacks against Israeli civilians.

ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Israel stands by its demands for the extradition of the murderers of Minister Zeevi and the extradition of Fouad Shubaki, the man who stood behind the link between Iran and the Palestinian Authority and, with Yasser Arafat's approval, financed the suicide bombers operating against Israeli.

I have to say, it would have been possible to avoid trying them twice, as they will anyway be brought to trial in Israel.

HANNA: Rehavam Zeevi was assassinated at a hotel in east Jerusalem on October the 18th. At the beginning of December, Israel placed Arafat under virtual house arrest in his Ramallah compound. The condition for lifting the siege: that Zeevi's killers be brought to trial.

(on camera): Three of the four were arrested in the West Bank city of Nablus. And in terms of a deal reached with Israel, brokered by U.S. and European diplomats, they were transported through the Israeli checkpoints to stand trial here in Ramallah. But clearly, Israel believes this deal no longer stands, and the siege of Yasser Arafat, at his compound just down this road, will, in all likelihood, continue. Mike Hanna, CNN, Ramallah.

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