They waved portraits of Abbas, chanted slogans calling for his immediate
release and delivered a message addressed to UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan arguing his capture violated accords "between the Palestine
Liberation Organization and Israel and signed by former U.S. President
Bill Clinton," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The letter was signed by the Palestinian parliament and several
Palestinian NGOs.
The Palestinian man, better known as Abu Abbas, was nabbed by U.S.
occupation troops in Baghdad on April 17.
Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, was convicted in
absentia by an Italian court over his involvement in the 1985 hijacking
of the Achille Lauro cruise liner, in which a U.S. citizen was murdered.
The Palestinian Authority charges his capture was illegal because under
the 1995 Oslo autonomy accords with Israel, members of the Palestine
Liberation Organization, of which the PLF is part, can not be arrested
or tried for acts committed before September 1993.
The United States orchestrated, sponsored, witnessed and signed the
accords.
Army
Bans Peace Demo
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Peace
Now activists stopped by Israeli police
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Meanwhile, Israeli occupation troops and police Monday prevented a
demonstration by the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now and
international supporters in the West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron),
members of the group told AFP.
Two busloads of protestors were stopped by the security forces halfway
between Jerusalem and al-Khalil, where some 600 hard line settlers live
under heavy army guard in the midst of 120,000 Palestinians.
Five demonstrators who tried to skirt around the police barricade were
arrested, the members said.
"The army told us Hebron was a closed military zone, to avoid any
clashes with the settlers," a Peace Now spokesman said.
"It's even more outrageous given that today there are thousands of
settlers taking part in the traditional Passover festival march in
Hebron under the protection of the army," he said.
The army slapped a curfew on the Palestinian areas of the city to ensure
the security of the festivities, a military source said.
Peace Now wanted to protest against the building of new settlement
outposts in the West Bank.
The main peace group in Israel says that more than 100 such unauthorized
wildcat settlements have been built in recent years, and only a dozen
dismantled.
The Jewish settlements, built on land seized by Israel in the 1967
Middle East war, are the main focus of the 30-month Palestinian
Intifada, which has left more than 3,000 people dead, most of them
Palestinians.
A "Friends of Peace Now" delegation of activists from France,
Belgium and Britain were also set to join the protest.
On Sunday, Israeli police clashed with hard line young settlers,
arresting two of them as they tried to set up a new outpost in
al-Khalil, police said.
Settlers from Jewish community of Kiryat Arba, built on the eastern edge
of al-Khalil, have tried to establish a new outpost in reprisal for a
Palestinian shooting attack in November which left nine Israeli soldiers
and three settler security guards dead.
After that attack, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to create
"territorial continuity" between Kiryat Arba and the Tomb of
the Patriarchs - a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims in the city
center near which the 600 settlers live.
