Abu Mazen Paid for the Murder of Israel's Olympic athletes

ISRAELI CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP ACCUSES ABU MAZEN OF HAVING FUNDED 1972 MUNICH OLYMPIC MASSACRE, CALLS FOR PROBE OF PALESTINIAN PM’s ROLE

Letter to German and American Leaders Alleges that New P.A. Prime Minister Financed "Black September" Terror Attack Which Killed 11 Athletes Including U.S. Citizen

The Israeli civil rights group Shurat Hadin has announced a campaign to convince U.S. and German law enforcement agencies to open an investigation into the role of newly-appointed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Abu Mazen in the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

On September 5, 1972, a squad of heavily armed Palestinian terrorists attacked the dormitories housing the Israeli Olympic team and murdered a coach and weight-lifter David Berger, who was an American citizen. The terrorists then took nine Israeli athletes hostage. While the terrorists and their hostages were transported to the airport, the German police botched a rescue attempt and all nine of the athletes were murdered.

The director of Shurat Hadin, attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, sent letters this week to U.S. President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder containing new information indicating that that Abu Mazen (whose given name is Mahmoud Abbas) provided financing to the PLO’s Black September terrorist group, in order to carry out the notorious terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympic Games.

While recent newsmedia profiles of Abu Mazen have accentuated the Palestinian leader’s alleged “terrorism-free” personal history, the Shurat Hadin charges that in 1972, Abu Mazen, then a high ranking PLO official, provided financing for the terrorist attacks being perpetrated by Yassir Arafat’s PLO faction Fatah under the nom de guerre Black September.

Shurat Hadin is basing its information on published statements by the terrorist who masterminded the the Munich attack, Mohammed Daoud Oudeh (“Abu Daoud”). In his French-language autobiography, Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich, Abu Daoud describes the role of Abu Mazen in providing the funds to carry out the Black September Olympic attack.

Furthermore, in an interview with journalist Don Yaeger of Sports Illustrated Magazine in August 2002, Abu Daoud reiterated his charges that Abu Mazen supplied the money for the deadly attack.

In his memoir Abu Daoud states: “After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. "Do you think that ... would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation?" Abu Daoud writes. "I doubt it."

Today, the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner "uncompromised by terror," yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell.”

Abu Daoud’s allegations have been confirmed by sources within the Palestinian Authority, according to Shurat Hadin. Attorney Darshan-Leitner’s letter to President Bush states: “Under your leadership the United States has declared that it will no longer maintain contacts with those tainted by terrorist pasts. It appears that the new Palestinian leader, on whom the United States and Israel are now pinning their hopes, was also involved in murderous attacks perpetrated by the PLO’s Black September. If proven true, Abu Mazen’s role in the brutal killing of the Israeli athletes and American citizen David Berger must preclude his involvement in the negotiations between the United States, Israel and her Arab neighbors.”

Both Germany and Israel still have the legal jurisdiction to prosecute those involved in the Munich Olympic killings.