Israelis arrest Palestinian candidate in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM - Israeli police Monday briefly arrested a Palestinian presidential candidate as he campaigned in disputed Jerusalem, in the latest incident to mar the run-up to elections for a successor to Yasser Arafat.

Aides to Mustafa Barghouthi said he was taken into custody while meeting Palestinians in Jerusalem's walled Old City, which the Jewish state captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed as its capital in a move not recognised internationally.

"The police told him, 'We have an arrest warrant for you', and dragged him away," Ihad al-Jariri, campaign manager for the independent candidate, told Reuters. After interrogation by police, Barghouthi was taken to the West Bank and released.

Police said Barghouthi, one of seven Palestinians running in Jan. 9 presidential elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was detained for violating his Israeli-issued entry permit.

"Barghouthi was allowed to enter Jerusalem in order to travel through it to another destination," an Israeli police spokesman said. "He was detained for staying in Jerusalem, questioned, and later freed at a West Bank checkpoint."

It was the third such incident since Arafat died in a Paris hospital on Nov. 11, prompting the first Palestinian elections since 1996 and renewing Middle East peace hopes.

Earlier this month, Barghouthi said Israeli troops beat and briefly detained him at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Jenin. The army said Barghouthi and his entourage had refused to submit to a routine car search.

Another candidate, Bassam al-Salhi of the communist People's Party, was briefly detained after trying to enter Jerusalem without a permit. Local Palestinian political activists have also complained of harassment by Israeli security forces.

Though wary of militants spearheading a four-year-old Palestinian revolt with suicide bombings, Israel has pledged to ease its clampdown in the West Bank and Gaza so candidates can move freely. But Jerusalem remains an especially sensitive jurisdiction.

Palestinians want the holy city to be a shared capital of their future state. Israel has ruled this out, but said East Jerusalem Palestinians can take part in the elections as absentee voters.

- REUTERS