ISRAELI LAWYER ACCUSES EU OF CONTINUING TO FUND PALESTINIAN TERROR

ISRAELI LAWYER ACCUSES EU OF CONTINUING TO FUND PALESTINIAN TERROR - CALLS FOR CHRIS PATTEN'S RESIGNATION

SHURAT HADIN - ISRAEL LAW CENTER
For Immediate March 2, 2003

Contact: In Israel: (972) 8-973-3336
In UK: +44-776-491-8720

ISRAELI LAWYER ACCUSES EU OF CONTINUING TO FUND PALESTINIAN TERROR - CALLS FOR CHRIS PATTEN'S RESIGNATION

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner Launches Lecture Tour in UK

Tel-Aviv attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner alleges that the
European Union (EU) is still funding Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians, despite assurances by Brussels that all financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) is being carefully scrutinized. The lawyer accuses EU Foreign Minister Chris Patten of covering up the fact that Arafat has diverted hundreds of millions of euros in monthly "humanitarian aid" payments to his Fatah Tanzim and Martyrs of al-Aqsa terrorist organizations. Although the
utilization of the EU funds is now required to be supervised by PA Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, Arafat still directly receives the money and personally distributes it to the PA affiliated terrorist groups.

Attorney Darshan-Leitner, who heads the Israeli based Shurat HaDin civil rights group, will be launching a lecture tour across the United Kingdom on March 2nd, to to document the EU funding of Palestinian terror.
She will urge that Chris Patten be removed from his post for strenuously obstructing the investigation into EU funding of the Palestinian terror.

Last year, Attorney Darshan-Leitner brought a $25 million civil action against the EU in the Tel-Aviv District Court on behalf of the family of Tehiya Blumberg, a British citizen from Hendon, who was killed in a drive-by shooting attack in Israel in August 2001. Her husband Steven (also from Hendon) and daughter were grievously injured in the shooting.

Members of the Palestinian Preventive Security forces have been arrested for carrying out the attack. The civil suit claims that the EU recklessly continued to provide funding to the PA although it had been repeatedly warned that the money was being diverted to the terrorist organizations.
More law suits will soon be filed by Darshan-Leitner in the EU's court on behalf of other Israeli terror victims.

Shoshana Gottleib, a young religious mother of four, who told her story, she was in was attacked by murderous Palestinian machine-gun fire in Tel Aviv, and how bending down to put orange peels in a plastic bag, she avoided the bullet that went through her headrest. As it was, Shoshana was critically injured, her spinal cord severed, paralyzing her for life from the chest down. One of the most interesting parts of Shoshana's story was her revelation that the terrorists who opened fire on her were three policemen in Arafat's Palestinian Authority, a fourth, who was Arafat's personal bodyguard in Force 17, and a fifth who had been recruited with the promise of $500. One of the terrorists videotaped the attack on the van, and it was sent to Yasir Arafat. Israel found the tape, when they went into Arafat's headquarters last April.

"We are seeking to enlist the British-Jewish community's assistance in blocking the so called "humanitarian aid" that the EU provides to Arafat, which is in fact being diverted for terrorism," states Attorney Darshan-Leitner, "We want European taxpayers to clearly understand that when they watch the suicide bombings and drive-by shootings which are devstating Israel on television, that it is the EU's funding that is financing these murderous attacks. Sixty years after the Holocaust Europe is want only killing Jews once again."

Attorney Darshan-Leitner will be available for interviews with the media: +44-776-491-8720