Palestine envoy killed in blast at Prague home

The diplomat,Jamal al-Jamal,56,had been in the Czech capital only since October 11.

The Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic died on Wednesday after suffering severe injuries caused by an explosive booby-trap security system in a safe at his Prague residence that he apparently had triggered by mistake,the police said. They said there was no indication the explosion was sabotage or a terrorist attack.

The diplomat,Jamal al-Jamal,56,had been in the Czech capital only since October 11. He and his family were just moving into the residence,and the explosion occurred while he was opening the safe,inadvertently setting off the security protection,said police spokeswoman Andrea Zoulova.

Daniel Langer,the lead surgeon at the Central Military Hospital in Prague,said the ambassador had suffered head,chest and stomach injuries. A 52-year-old woman was taken to the hospital from the residence after inhaling fumes from the explosion,but was released later.

Zoulova said a police investigation at the residence indicated that the safe itself had exploded because of careless handling that detonated the decoy system. The president of the Czech police was quoted as saying,We do not have a single indication that this could be a terrorist attack.

The Palestinian Authority,based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank,maintains missions in a number of European capitals as part of a broader diplomatic effort aimed at advancing the cause of Palestinian statehood. Ambassador Jamals death came against a backdrop of difficult negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israeli officials over a two-state solution to their prolonged conflict.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Jamal was critically injured by a blast that occurred minutes after he opened a safe that had been transferred to the new residence from the missions old headquarters,and that he was pronounced dead after undergoing emergency surgery. NYT

safe had been left untouched for 20 yrs

Safe was recently moved from the old embassy building,but it had come from a building that used to house the Palestinian Liberation Organizations offices in the 1980s,said Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki. It had been left untouched for more than 20 years.

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The ambassador wanted to know what is in the safe. He opened it and asked his wife to bring a paper and a pen to write down the contents of the safe. She left him to bring the pen and paper. During that time,she heard the sound of an explosion, Malki said.

Al-Jamal was born in 1957,in Beiruts Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp. His family is originally from Jaffa in what is now Israel. He joined Fatah in 1975. In 1979,he was appointed deputy ambassador in Bulgaria. Starting in 1984,he served as a diplomat in Prague,eventually as acting ambassador.

From 2005-2013,he served as consul general in Alexandria,Egypt. In October 2013,he was appointed ambassador in Prague. AP