Arrests Told in West Bank Mayor’s Death : Members of Palestinian Guerrilla Cell Held After Yearlong Probe

After a yearlong manhunt, Israeli security forces have arrested members of a Palestinian guerrilla cell believed to be responsible for the assassination of Mayor Zafer Masri in the West Bank city of Nablus, the army said Friday.

Brig. Gen. Amram Mitzna, the Israeli army commander on the West Bank, told a news conference that the arrested suspects belong to one of the most “dangerous and murderous gangs” ever to operate in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Mitzna said the suspects were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and that one of them had been trained in Syria. He described the group as, “very professional, acting with maximum skill . . . courageous, ideologically motivated and extremely committed.”

He declined to say how many suspects had been arrested, or when, indicating that officials believe more members of the group are still at large.

However, he said authorities are convinced that they are members of the terrorist cell responsible for Masri’s assassination and for killing an Israeli border policeman and a Jewish food vendor in Nablus.

Mitzna said the group is also suspected of involvement in several other attacks, including an attempt on the life of the Palestinian mayor of the West Bank town of Jeni.

Masri, 44, was gunned down outside his office in March, 1986, only four months after he had been appointed by Israel as mayor of Nablus, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank.

The PFLP said that it was responsible for the slaying and that the moderate Palestinian mayor had been guilty of “collaboration” with Israel and Jordan.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, which is known to have tacitly approved Masri’s appointment as Nablus mayor, condemned the killing, which widened the split that then existed within Palestinian ranks.

Significant Political Impact

The split has since been papered over and the PFLP, which was then allied with Syria, rejoined the PLO after reconciliation talks with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization in Algiers earlier this year.

At the time, Masri’s assassination had a significant political impact, for it succeeded in halting Israeli efforts to grant limited self-rule to the 1.4 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, the territories captured by Israel from Jordan and Egypt in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.

Several other Arab notables immediately reacted by withdrawing as candidates for other Israeli-appointed mayoral posts.

Most of these posts had been filled by military authorities after Israel deposed several popularly elected Palestinian mayors because of their pro-PLO views.

Although some Palestinians viewed Masri’s acceptance of the Nablus post as collaboration with the Israelis, it was a measure of his popularity that pro-PLO moderates welcomed the news of his assassins’ arrest.

“Mr. Masri was courageous in serving his city and his people; his assassination was an act of cowardice,” Palestinian newspaper editor Hanna Siniora said.

Siniora, who caused a stir recently by announcing his intention to field a slate of Palestinian candidates in next year’s Jerusalem municipal election, said Masri’s assassins deserve to be punished according to “the full measure of the law.”

Radwan abu Ayyash, head of the Arab Journalists Assn. of East Jerusalem, added that “whoever commits such a crime should be brought to justice.” And he added, “I am against killing anyone.”

Mitzna, in announcing the arrests, made a point of praising the role in the yearlong investigation played by the Shin Bet, Israel’s scandal-plagued internal security organization.

Although the highly secretive Shin Bet is the “hidden hand” that maintains security in the occupied territories, its role in such investigations is rarely mentioned.

That Mitzna went out of his way to credit the Shin Bet this time was seen as an attempt to polish the organization’s public image following the scandals that have tarnished it of late.

In the latest affair to come to light, Shin Bet agents last month were found to have tortured a Muslim army officer into confessing to crimes of treason that he did not commit.

Confessions Gotten by Torture

Lawyers who defend Palestinian suspects say the Shin Bet routinely extracts confessions by means of torture that includes beatings, threats, humiliation, deprivation of sleep and freezing cold showers.

The government, bowing to public pressure after a Supreme Court ruling in one such torture case, recently agreed to appoint a commission to investigate the Shin Bet’s interrogation techniques.

The investigation has been opposed by the Shin Bet, which argues that public scrutiny of its methods may harm its effectiveness in combating terrorism.

However, Mitzna said the latest arrests prove that despite the controversy surrounding the agency, the Shin Bet “has suffered no harm to the dedication and thoroughness of its field work.”