Belgium tightens security for foreign envoys

Press, 3 June 1981, Page 9

Belgium tightens security for foreign envoys

NZPA-Reuter Brussels Belgium is taking extra measures to protect diplomats after the assassination of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's representative in Brussels, according to Government sources. A delegation led by an official of the organisation's political department was due in Brussels today to discuss steps to protect the P.L.O. office after the killing on Kfonday of Naim Khader, a key figure in relations Setween Western Europe and the Arab world. Dr Khader, aged 41, was shot outside his home. The gunman escaped on foot after firing. five shots at close range, One bullet went through Dr Khader’s head and another hit his heart, police sources said. There had not been an arrest, despite a big hunt for the gunman, and nobody had claimed responsibility for the killing, a police spokesman said. The P.L.O. representative in Bonn, Abdallah Frangi, said in Brussels that Dr Khader was killed by Israel. The Israeli Embassy denied involvement by Israel. Mr Frangi said Dr Khader was killed by Israel because Western Europe was on the verge of recognising the P.L.O. as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

But the embassy said: “We know the various Palestinian movements kill each other.” Mr Frangi said Dr Khader, a Jordanian married to a Belgian, had asked the Belgian Foreign Ministry for protection after receiving information that assassination attempts were being prepared against P.L.O. representatives in European capitals. "In Paris, London. Rome, Madrid, Vienna and Bonn, security measures were taken but we are sorry to say that this had not been done in Brussels,” Mr Frangi said. A Belgian Interior Ministry spokesman said earlier that protection by Belgian security services had been lifted some time ago at Dr Khader’s request. The Interior Minister (Mr Philippe Busquin) said in response to Mr Frangi that a watch had been kept on Dr Khader’S' home — “but it was not under special . surveillance as no request had been made.”’ Dr Khader took charge of the P.L.O.’s Brussels office when it opened in 1976. Arab sources said he belonged to Fatah,? the main Palestinian organisation. The shooting of Dr Khader brought : to eight the number of P.L.O. representatives abroad to be' Killed where

they worked in the last 10 years. On December 8,1972, Mahmud Hamshari was seriously wounded by a bomb under his telephone in his Paris flat. He died a month later. On January 25. 1973, Hussein Bashir Abul Kheir was killed by a bomb in his hotel room in Nicosia, Cyprus. On January 4. 1978. Said Hammani was shot down in his office in the Arab League’s quarters in the heart of London. On June 15, 1978. Ali Yassin was shot dead outside his home in Kuwait, where he headed the P.L.O. office. On August 3, 1978. Ezzedin Kalak was killed in Paris when two Jordanians of Palestinian origin hit him with 16 bullets. His deputy, Hammad Adnan, was also killed by a hand-grenade. The killers were caught and sentenced to 15 years jail. Zuhair Mohsen, the P.L.O.’s military chief, was shot dead outside his French Riviera flat in the summer of 1979. Although the Palestinians have often blamed Israel for the assassinations, Arab diplomatic sources say many of the killings were part of inter Arab feuding which has involved Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, as well as the Palestinians. ■