Fugitive killed inside Palestinian embassy in Bulgaria

The body of Omar Nayef Zayed was found on Friday in the garden of the Palestinian Authority’s mission in Sofia, the Sofia Globe reported. He was rushed to hospital but died en route.

The Palestinian militant group PFLP initially said Zayed had been shot, but Palestinian Ambassador Ahmed al-Madbuh did not repeat those claims and Bulgarian officials insisted there were no gunshot wounds.

According to data, the dead man in the yard of the Palestinian Embassy in Sofia, was still alive when he was found. That is what Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior, Senior Commissary Georgi Kostov said at a briefing, a reporter of FOCUS News Agency announced.

Video footage of the site afterward showed a pool of blood near the embassy, located in a leafy, quiet neighborhood of Sofia.

In late December of past year, Bulgarian authorities gave Zayed 72 hours to turn himself in following a formal request for his return by Israeli authorities.

“For us, Omar Zayed is a martyr who fulfilled his duty to his land and people”, the ambassador said, stressing that the diplomatic mission awaits the results of the investigation and the autopsy.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said it had learnt of his death in the media and was studying the information.

“I told all sides that our prosecution had received a request for extradition and now a court was to decide whether he will be extradited or not”, Borisov told Parliament Friday.

PA officials blamed the Mossad for his death.

Nayef was sentenced to life in prison for the murder but escaped in 1990 while being moved to hospital after he began a hunger strike. He was convicted of the murder of yeshivah student Eliyahu Amadi, Hy ” d, in the Old City of Yerushalayim, and given a life sentence.

The leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), of which Nayef was a member, cited in a statement his family as calling his death an “assassination”.

The news of Zayed’s death came during the visit to Israel of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev and Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov. “We believe that those who persecuted him could have carried out something against him”. He said Bulgaria withdrew security guards seven years ago because there had been no attacks on the embassy for 20 years.