Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has cut short his visit to Belgium and headed to Amman where he is due to receive the body of Faisal Al Husseini, who died in Kuwait Thursday morning.
Reports said that Kuwaiti Airlines would bring Husseini to Amman, where a Royal Jordanian plane is waiting to take him home. Funeral prayers will take place at Al Aqsa Mosque.
Husseini’s family and other Palestinian officials will also be receiving the coffin.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian MP said that the PA has refused to allow Kuwaiti authorities to perform an autopsy on Husseini, who was the Palestinian Authority's official in charge of the Jerusalem File.
A Jerusalem deputy, Hatem Abdul Qader, angrily told Al Jazeera satellite channel that they would not allow the Kuwaitis to deal with Husseini dead after they did not welcome him alive.
Abdul Qader had told the station earlier that Husseini was tense after he attended a parliamentary committee meeting in Kuwait Wednesday, in which MPs attacked the PA and Arafat in person.
According to press reports and Israel’s Army Radio, the official died of a heart attack after a verbal quarrel with Kuwaiti police officers who wanted to arrest one of his guards.
Reuters confirmed the story, identifying the guard as Nasser Qawwas, who is wanted by Kuwait for “security crimes” he allegedly committed during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait between 1990-1991.
Husseini, 61, who arrived in Kuwait on Tuesday on the first visit by a Palestinian minister to the Gulf Arab state in 11 years, died at his hotel before the start of a conference of non-governmental groups on Thursday in Kuwait, said Reuters.
Comments by Husseini on improving ties with Kuwait, severed since the Gulf country accused the Palestinian leadership of supporting Iraq during its occupation of Kuwait, triggered an uproar in Kuwait's parliament on Wednesday.
Several MPs had told Husseini that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was "persona non grata" in Kuwait.
Opposition MP Ahmad Al Saadoun, a three-time former speaker, strongly criticized Husseini for saying upon arrival that "God willing" Arafat would visit Kuwait.
"We hope the dark day when we see Arafat and his men in Kuwait will never come," MP Waleed Al Jerri said.
Parliament speaker Jassem Al Khorafi said Kuwaitis would not welcome the Palestinian president, adding that he did not believe an official invitation would be extended.
Voicing the position of several MPs, Saadoun said the Palestinian president, who once worked in Kuwait and formed his Fateh resistance group there in 1959, was "persona non grata."
But Husseini, further angering MPs, came to parliament on Wednesday and spent two hours discussing the deep rift between the PA and Kuwait with four members of a foreign relations panel – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
