Suha remains in Egypt

2004-11-12 18:58

Ramallah - The controversial wife of Yasser Arafat did not attend his burial service in the West Bank on Friday, choosing instead to stay on in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, Palestinian political sources said.

Suha, who was at the centre of an unseemly row with four of Arafat's top lieutenants earlier in the week over access to her husband's hospital bedside, did not fly back with his coffin to Ramallah after a military funeral in Cairo.

"She decided to stay on to receive condolences," one source told AFP. "She is then going to go back to either France or Tunisia" where she divides her time.

Suha, who was 34 years younger than her 75-year-old husband, sparked outrage among the Palestinian leadership when she accused prime minister Ahmed Qorei, the new Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Mahmud Abbas and foreign minister Nabil Shaath of wanting to bury her husband alive.

She also infuriated other aides to the veteran leader by preventing them from paying bedside visits while she kept up a vigil at the Percy military hospital, near Paris.

Suha, who married Arafat secretly in 1990, was an infrequent visitor to the occupied territories and stayed away from Arafat's Muqataa headquarters during the near three-year Israel siege which ended a fortnight ago when Arafat was airlifted to France.

- AFP