As PA officials were arriving for a recent meeting with Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, and as reporters were milling around outside waiting for news to break, PA policemen took a young man in his early 20's to the back of a building in Arafat's compound and executed him. Khaled Abu Toameh reported in yesterday's Jerusalem Post:
"Three policemen standing about three meters away sprayed him with bullets from their rifles. He was hit in the head and chest and fell to the ground. One of the policemen then walked up to him and fired one more shot into his head. 'Take him away,' came the order from another police officer... When the rest of the journalists heard the shots they rushed towards the area to see what was happening... Nervous policemen charged at the cameras and reporters and ordered them to leave the area. I asked a police officer what had happened and he replied, 'A criminal has been executed. What's the big deal?' ...
"[One of the reporters] was still in shock even after we arrived back in Jerusalem. 'This is a surrealistic experience,' he said. 'To execute someone in a place where the representatives of the world media are standing and where the cabinet is meeting is unprecedented. I have never heard of a case like this and it shows the cultural gap between the Palestinian society and most of the world.'"
"Three policemen standing about three meters away sprayed him with bullets from their rifles. He was hit in the head and chest and fell to the ground. One of the policemen then walked up to him and fired one more shot into his head. 'Take him away,' came the order from another police officer... When the rest of the journalists heard the shots they rushed towards the area to see what was happening... Nervous policemen charged at the cameras and reporters and ordered them to leave the area. I asked a police officer what had happened and he replied, 'A criminal has been executed. What's the big deal?' ...
"[One of the reporters] was still in shock even after we arrived back in Jerusalem. 'This is a surrealistic experience,' he said. 'To execute someone in a place where the representatives of the world media are standing and where the cabinet is meeting is unprecedented. I have never heard of a case like this and it shows the cultural gap between the Palestinian society and most of the world.'"