OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 25 January 2004 — Hundreds of Arab prisoners are likely to be exchanged within days for one Israeli and the bodies of three soldiers, following three years of negotiations, the lawyer for two Lebanese prisoners said yesterday.
The deal includes some 400 Lebanese, Palestinian and other Arab prisoners, Israel Radio said.
Zvi Rish, the Israeli lawyer for two of the most prominent Lebanese prisoners to be released, Sheikh Obeid and Mustafa Darani, told Israel Radio that the deal would “probably” be implemented by Tuesday and include almost all the prisoners whose release had been under negotiation.
The deal was apparently made possible by the exclusion of one prisoner, Samir Al-Qantar, a Lebanese involved in an attack that killed three members of an Israeli family in 1978.
“At this stage he (Qantar) will not be released,” Rish said.
Army radio quoted official sources as saying Qantar’s release depended on the receipt of information about the fate of Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force navigator taken prisoner in 1986.
“The agreement is already made and they will merely announce it,” Rish said.
According to the lawyer, Israel is to receive back through the German-mediated negotiations a businessman abducted on what Israel called an illicit trip to the United Arab Emirates, and the bodies of three soldiers kidnapped on the Lebanese border in 2000.
