Middle East - Arafat murder charges

Al-Jazeera shut down over Arafat assassination claims

Article published on the 2009-07-16 Latest update 2009-07-16 13:12 TU

Yasser Arafat
(Photo: AFP)

The Palestinian Authority ordered the closure of Al-Jazeera television in the West Bank on Wednesday, accusing the channel of airing false information designed to "incite against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), and the Palestinian Authority".

The closure comes after Al-Jazeera broadcast charges by senior PLO official Faruq Kaddumi that President Mahmud Abbas collaborated with Israel to assassinate veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Arafat died in a Paris hospital in 2004.

The Palestinian Authority’s Information Ministry says it will take Al-Jazeera to court over the broadcast. 

The story was aired less than a month before Abbas's Fatah movement meets to renew its leadership for the first time in 20 years.

The channel’s editor in Ramallah, Walid al Omary, rejected the accusations and said “this decision […] harms the freedom of expression and press in the country".

Kaddumi stood by his story on Thursday, claiming to have transcripts of conversations between Abbas, his security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, and Israel's then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plotting to murder Arafat in 2003. 

The Islamic party Hamas, which controls Gaza, condemned the closure and said the move was "further proof of the scale of violations committed against the media on the part of the government in Ramallah”.

Since Hamas took over the Gaza strip in June 2007, routing pro-Abbas forces, tension have been high between the Palestinian Authority and Al-Jazeera, which the PA accuses of siding with Hamas.