Eerekat: We want to question British, French and U.S. Palestine papers whistleblowers
Reageer (0)27-1-2011
Chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat says he asked France, U.S. and Britain to help investigate the men, but stresses that he is not accusing them of wrongdoing.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Thursday he asked the United States, Britain and France for help in bringing three of their nationals for questioning in connection with the leak of confidential Palestinian documents.
Erekat said he would like to investigate the three men in connection with the leak, but that he is not accusing them of wrongdoing.
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Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in a file photo. |
| Photo by: Dan Keinan |
He identified one as U.S. citizen Clayton Swisher, who currently works at Al-Jazeera as a reporter, and used to serve as a bodyguard in the U.S. State Department during the Clinton administration.
The second person Erekat blamed for the leak is British citizen Alastair Crooke, who was a ranking figure in the British intelligence (MI6) as well as an adviser to the European Union's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy. Crooke is considered close to officials in Hamas
The French national has not yet been named.
Al-Jazeera recently began leaking 1,600 secret documents on Middle East negotiations, which reveal many significant concessions made by the Palestinian Authority in the past years, mostly documents signed by Erekat.
In contrast to earlier publications in the Palestinian media, Erekat told Haaretz that Swisher had never worked in his office, and said that if the documents were leaked from his office then he would take responsibility for them. Meanwhile, he told Haaretz that he has demanded that the U.S. State Department investigate Swisher to find out the source of the leak.
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