Law and Order

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When a relative is condemned to death, it's not the usual thing to take out a newspaper ad urging the swift implementation of the sentence. But that is what the ABU-SULTAN family of the Gaza Strip did--and it got its wish. Last week the Palestinian Authority of Chairman YASSER ARAFAT conducted the first executions in its four years of self-rule when brothers MOHAMED and RAED ABU-SULTAN were killed by firing squad in Gaza City after being convicted of murdering another pair of brothers, MAJDI and MOHAMED AL-KHALDI, on a Gaza street. Their trial, in a secretive military court, took half an hour, and they were executed within 48 hours of the crime. The two families had quarreled after a different member of the Abu-Sultan clan was accused of gesturing inappropriately at an Al-Khaldi relative. Police say the family of the condemned men took out the ad in order to prevent reprisals from the Al-Khaldis, who had targeted 10 Abu-Sultans for revenge. A senior aide to Arafat says the Chairman opposed the executions but was pressured by members of his Fatah organization. The slain Al-Khaldi brothers were Fatah activists and members of the Palestinian intelligence apparatus.

--By Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem