Posted on 11/25/2002 2:33:22 PM PST by anotherview
Nov. 25, 2002 Remaining exiled Palestinian leaves Cyprus for Mauritania(UPDATE) By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NICOSIA, Cyprus - The last of a dozen Palestinians exiled to Cyprus in May to end a monthlong siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity was escorted Monday to Mauritania after months of searching for a willing host.
Abdullah Daoud, 41, was sent to Mauritania because it was the only Arabic-speaking country willing to take him in, his wife, Kifah, said from her home in the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus. She said she had spoken with her husband by telephone before he left for the Muslim West African nation.
"I asked him, 'why Mauritania?"' she told The Associated Press. "He said, 'I prefer to be in an Arabic country and this is the only option."'
Cypriot Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides said earlier Monday only that Daoud was sent to "a distant non-European country" where he would be joined by his family. He said he was not authorized to identify the country providing asylum, and EU officials also would not reveal Daoud's destination.
Cassoulides said Daoud left the island accompanied by a European Union escort, whom he did not identify. Mauritania is one of only three Arab League nations with diplomatic ties with Israel.
Daoud was exiled to Cyprus with 12 other Palestinians under a deal worked out with the European Union in what was meant to be a temporary arrangement to end the siege at one of Christianity's holiest shrines.
Israeli authorities have described Daoud as "the most dangerous terrorist," which apparently hampered efforts to secure him asylum in any of the European countries that received the other Palestinians after brief stays in Cyprus.
Daoud was the Palestinian Authority's intelligence chief in Bethlehem when Israeli forces entered the West Bank earlier this year. Israel accuses him of organizing attacks on Israelis, making explosives, smuggling weapons and providing shelter to members of terrorist groups.
In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Daoud denounced all terror attacks that result in the killing of civilians.
He said he was so outraged by the Oct. 12 terror attack in the Indonesian tourist resort of Bali that killed nearly 200 people that "I decided to appeal to Arabs and Muslims everywhere to denounce the murder of so many innocent people."
"I cannot understand such action, it is truly unbelievable," he said.
Asked about the suicide attacks carried out by fellow Palestinians against Israeli civilians, Daoud said "I am against operations that result in the killing of innocent people, and that includes the Sept. 11 attack against the Trade Center tower in New York."
Following his arrival in Cyprus in May, Daoud spent a month in the same hotel in the coastal city of Larnaca that is now used by U.N. inspectors for Iraq. He was then moved to a hotel in the capital, Nicosia, where he complained of missing his family.
"With the departure of Abdullah Daoud, the role and the mission of Cyprus in connection with this issue involving the exiled Palestinians has been completed," Cassoulides said.
They wouldn't even take in a single Arab terrorist. Yet they expect Israel to coexist peacefully with thousands of them.
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