U.S. Urged to Seek Arafat’s Indictment

The Justice Department is being pressed by conservative and Jewish groups to seek the indictment of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat for his alleged involvement in the murder of two U.S. diplomats 12 years ago, it was learned Thursday.

A spokesman for Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III confirmed that the department has received “new allegations” about Arafat’s role in the 1973 slayings of Ambassador Cleo Noel and Charge d’Affaires G. Curtis Moore in Khartoum, Sudan. The matter “is under review,” spokesman Terry Eastland said.

The push for Arafat’s prosecution raises sensitive political, diplomatic and legal questions for the Reagan Administration. But those calling for Arafat’s prosecution see the case as a test of the Administration’s seriousness in using all legal means to combat international terrorism.

After the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 last June and the Achille Lauro hijacking in October, the Justice Department obtained indictments or arrest warrants for the terrorists allegedly involved. In the Achille Lauro case, it unsuccessfully sought the extradition of Abul Abbas, a Palestinian guerrilla leader allowed to leave Italy over U.S. protests.

President Reagan told an American Bar Assn. convention in July that “we will seek to indict, apprehend and prosecute” terrorists.

Arafat’s “role in worldwide terrorism is well known,” a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said. “You can’t have a serious anti-terror policy without dealing with the top figures.”

Charles Lichenstein, a former deputy ambassador to the United Nations who now is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, said he raised the issue with Meese last month.

An Intercepted Message?

“He expressed interest in seeing the information that I and some others had been able to compile,” Lichenstein said, adding that “the material was later put in his hands.”

The material includes an assertion that the U.S. government has a tape recording of an intercepted message in which Arafat allegedly ordered the assassination of the two U.S. diplomats, who were among the hostages taken when Palestinian terrorists seized the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum during a reception March 2, 1973.

Justice Department spokesmen refused to discuss the material now before Meese, and the existence of such a tape could not be independently confirmed.

Neil C. Livingstone, co-author of the recently published book “Fighting Back: Winning the War Against Terrorism,” said a confidential cable sent to the State Department from the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum on March 7, 1973, stated that the terrorists “did not murder Ambassador Noel and Moore nor surrender . . . until receiving specific code-word instructions” from Beirut, where the PLO had its headquarters at the time.

Portions of the cable were excised when it was declassified, and the source of the embassy’s information was not disclosed.

Livingstone called the effort to indict Arafat “a creative use of the law . . . as an instrument against international terrorism.” He said, “There is a symbolism factor--it would be an affirmation to the world that the United States does not take lightly the murder of its public servants and citizens.”

And, he added, an outstanding arrest warrant “would make it very difficult” for Arafat to travel in Western Europe or other allied countries “without some risk of being arrested and extradited.”

Lichenstein said he raised the issue with Meese because of his concern about the PLO’s possible role in Mideast peace talks. “We should very carefully reconsider any strategy that looks to working with Arafat and the PLO in the peace process,” he said. “This calls into question the credentials of these folks.”