ATHENS, FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2001 NEWS & FRONT PAGE Kathimerini

Updated: 06/22/2001 10:43 GMT

Palestinians arrested for shooting

Two Palestinians have been arrested for the killing of a Greek monk in a West Bank ambush earlier this month, the Israeli Embassy in Athens said yesterday.

An embassy announcement said Ismael Daoud Hsen Radaida, 20, had confessed to shooting 34-year old Father Germanos - born Georgios Tsibouktsakis - inside his car on June 12, together with Yasser Muhamed Abed Rabaya, 27. The two, who were arrested in Jerusalem, belonged to Force 17 - Yasser Arafat's guard - and had been directed and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles by the Fatah group's armed militia in the West Bank, the embassy said.

The Thessaloniki-born monk, who had lived in Israel since 1990, had been driving a car with Israeli number plates from Jerusalem to his desert monastery of St George, at Wadi Kelt near Jericho, where for a time he had served as deputy abbot.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001