PALESTINIAN AMBASSADOR TO CZECH REPUBLIC KILLED IN BLAST

Prague, 1 Rabiul Awal 1435/2 January 2013 (MINA) – The Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic, Jamal al Jamal has been killed in a blast at his home thought to have been caused when he opened a safe containing explosives.

Ambassador Jamal al Jamal was in his apartment with his family at the time of the explosion on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Palestinian Embassy said.

He was seriously injured and taken to hospital, where he later died.

Czech police said there was no evidence that Jamal al-Jamal had been attacked. But the Czech authorities are bound to demand to know why explosives were being stored at the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Prague.

According to Riad al-Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister, the safe had not been opened in at least 30 years. It was recently moved from an old embassy building, The skynews and the Guardian reported as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

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“The ambassador decided to open it. After he opened it, apparently something happened inside and [the safe] went off,” Maliki said.

The Novinky.cz news site, quoting sources close to the police investigation, said the blast had probably been caused by “careless manipulation with a dangerous explosive”.

A Prague rescue service spokeswoman, Jirina Ernestova, said Jamal, 56, had been put in a medically induced coma when he first arrived at Prague military hospital. Daniel Langer, a doctor at the hospital, told public television Jamal had suffered serious abdominal injuries.

A 52-year-old woman was taken from the scene of the explosion to a hospital in Prague suffering from shock. She was not immediately identified.

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An embassy spokesman, Nabil el-Fahel, told Czech Radio the ambassador’s entire family had been at the two-storey residence in Suchdol, a northern suburb of the Czech capital, when the blast occurred.

A Palestinian official in Ramallah said: “This explosion happened at his house. He recently moved there. He was taken to hospital. An investigation is under way.”

A second Palestinian source said: “He moved an old case with him to the new house from the old house. And when he opened it, the explosion happened.”

There were no visible signs of damage to the house. Police cordoned off part of the street and half a dozen police vehicles, two firetrucks and two ambulances were present. Police sniffer dogs were at the site.

The Palestinian foreign ministry said it would send a delegation to Prague to help with the investigation.

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PALESTINIANS SENDING TEAM

The Palestinian foreign ministry said it would send a team to Prague to help with the investigation.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, said Jamal was “martyred in the line of duty”.

Born in Beirut to a refugee family, Jamal joined Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1975 and served in PLO missions to Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia in the 1980s.

Part of the diplomatic corps of the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank under interim peace accords with Israel, he had been its consul in Alexandria since 2005. He took up the ambassador post to Prague only in October 2013.

Communist Czechoslovakia maintained friendly relations with the PLO in the 1980s. (T/P04/E1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)