Syrians confess to death plot

Press, 27 February 1981, Page 6

Syrians confess to death plot

NZPA-Reuter Amman, Jordan Five Syrians, led by a colonel said yesterday that they had been ordered to kill the Jordanian Prime Minister (Mr Modar Badran). The five said on television in Amman, the Jordanian capital, that tire plot to kill the Prime Minister had been planned by Colonel Rifaat Assad, brother of Syria’s President Hafez Assad.

Earlier yesterday, Syria accused Mr Badran of planning assassinations in Syria and it threatened reprisals against him and other Jordanian officials.

Colonel Adnan Kamel Banakat, the leader of the five Syrians who appeared on television, said the spot chosen for the assassination attempt was mid-way between the British Embassy and the Reuter offices in the fashionable Jabel Amman quarter. He said that Soviet arms, including rifles and hand-gre-nades, were to be used against the Prime Minister’s motorcade as he left his offices. The five Syrians were said to have been arrested on February 1. Two of them, Sergeant Issa Ibraham Fayyad and Corporal Akram Ali Bishawi, said that they had taken part in an attack on a prison in Palmyra,, central Syria, where they said more than 500 members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood were killed on June 27 hast year, a day after an attempt to assassinate President Assad. Both men said that 82 troops were flown in helicopters from Mezza airport in Damascus to Palmyra where they attacked the prison. , , , They said that the key role in drawing up the plan for the assasssination plot was played by Major Muin-Nas-sif, son-in-law of Colonel Assad and commander of the 40th Brigade of the Syrian defence units. They said they were under military orders when they entered Jordan to try and kill Mr Badran.