Czech newspaper: Palestinian ambassador probably killed following explosion of booby-trapped book

A Czech daily newspaper cited a police investigator on Tuesday who claims that the police now think the explosion that killed the Palestinian ambassador in Prague last January was caused by a decades-old plastic explosive device hidden inside a book.

According to the Mlada Fronta Dnes newspaper, police have concluded that Ambassador Jamal Al-Jamal was not assassinated, but inadvertently opened a book in which an explosive device was put ten years ago. “It was an unfortunate accident. The ambassador was a thorough man who wanted to put some old things in order, and among them there were two books with explosives,” the Czech newspaper quoted the source as saying.

Earlier police statements had suggested that Al-Jamal may have been killed by an explosive device used to secure an old safe.

The newspaper did not explain why such a book was left all that time in the embassy in Prague. However, the investigating officers found other explosives and weapons at the embassy that were used during the Cold War days.

The Palestinians said they were gifts from officials of the old Czechoslovakia, which was divided into the Republics of Czech and Slovakia. That Communist Party had good relations with the PLO, which was then led by the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

The explosion occurred while the Palestinian mission was moving the ambassador’s residence and the embassy to another location. Al-Jamal died of his wounds in a hospital.

“We are awaiting another expert opinion, but it was Semtex with 99.9 per cent probability. The explosive was roughly from the 1970s. It was at least 30 years old,” the police source told the newspaper.

The Czech company Explosia has produced this type of explosive since the 1960s. Large amounts were transferred abroad during the Cold War, and it was allegedly used in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.

Sources: arabs48.com | Reuters