'Palestinians' want top terrorists for Israeli soldier

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Source: The Jerusalem Post
April 10, 2007

Palestinian Authority Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti confirmed on Monday that his government is demanding Israel release top terrorist leaders in exchange for an IDF soldier it is holding.

Among the 1,400 prisoners the "Palestinians" want freed are Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, announced Barghouti.

Marwan Barghouti, a distant relative of the information minister, is serving five life sentences after being found guilty of ordering the murders of four Israelis and a Greek monk.

Barghouti is known to be behind the deaths of many more Israelis, though evidence linking him to other murders was lacking.

Barghouti is a popular parliamentarian, and a man many see as the future chairman of the PLO. He is also the founder and commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Tanzim "military wings" of current PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction.

The Brigades and the Tanzim are both recognized by the US State Department as terrorist organizations.

The demand for Barghouti's release poses the greatest obstacle to a prisoner exchange, as it would require a pardon from the president of Israel since Barghouti was convicted in a civilian court.

But Israel is no less averse to freeing Saadat, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who ordered the 2001 assassination of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi.

An unofficial list published on a website affiliated with the ruling "Palestinian" faction Hamas revealed that Israel is also required to free the masterminds of some of the bloodiest terrorist attacks against the Jewish state in recent years.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert previously declared that he would not release so many terrorists, and certainly not any with "blood on their hands," in exchange for IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit.

The young soldier was nabbed by Hamas-aligned terrorists last June, and has been held hostage in Gaza ever since.

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