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Breaking News

Court Convicts Four Palestinians For Last Fall's Killing of Israeli Cabinet Minister

Aired April 25, 2002 - 06:01   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We have breaking news to tell you about now from the Middle East. A court convening in the Ramallah compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has now convicted four Palestinians for last fall's killing of an Israeli cabinet minister.

CNN's Mike Hanna is covering the story in Ramallah. Mike, what can you tell us?

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, it's a bizarre situation, and certainly does appear to have been a bizarre legal process. It has been announced that four men, who were charged with the assassination of last year of the Israeli tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, have been tried and found guilty in a Palestinian legal process within the compound of Yasser Arafat.

Now, this compound has been surrounded and besieged by Israeli forces for a long period of time. The news of conviction and trial of the four emerged at a time when I speaking to the Palestinian information minister. He knew nothing about it.

And so, the situation is, though we have clarified the further details, is that these four men were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. One of them, Hamdi Koran (ph), was sentenced to 18 years with hard labor. He was the one who the court found actually carried out the murder of the Israeli tourism minister. A man who drove the getaway car, Basil al-Asmer (ph) was sentenced to 12 years. The driver of the car was sentenced to 8 years, and a man was also convicted of having known about the plot without telling the Palestinian Authority. He received a one-year sentence.

Now, what is bizarre about all of this, Carol, is that the judge was a security officer with no previous legal background. A policeman in the compound was appointed attorney for the defense. So very much a bizarre situation, and this arising from the fact that there have been consistent demands for the trial and conviction and justice being done with those who carried out this assassination.

Now, the reaction from Israel has been pretty quick. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said that, well, these men are just going to be tried twice, because he continues to insist that those responsible for the murder of the tourism minister are handed over Israel for trial -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So this was sort of like an olive branch held out by Yasser Arafat to the Israelis?

HANNA: Well, very much so on one level. There have been demands, and from the U.S. as well, a very strong demand last week from President Bush, that these men be brought to justice. The whole question of whether justice has been served in this case, well, that is open to debate. It was not a court. It was an extraordinary military tribunal, as it is called, a makeshift military tribunal is the way the Palestinians describe it.

But certainly, Yasser Arafat apparently wanting to make clear that he is intent on bringing justice in this particular case, that he is taking action against those who assassinated that Israeli tourism minister. However, from Israel's point of view, this is not enough, not even going into the debates about whether or not this was a proper trial. They continue to insist that the man must be handed over, a position that the Palestinians say is against every previous agreement and against the terms of the Oslo Accords, that it is not needed for the Palestinians to do so.

So there will be argument about this. There will be debate about it, but the Israelis continue to insist that this is meaningless on one level, that the men must still be handed over to an Israeli court for trial -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to have some comments from an Israeli spokesperson a little later on in our program, but thank you for that report from Ramallah this morning -- Mike Hanna reporting.

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