Italy: Secret Arafat diaries confirm non-aggression pact between Italy and Palestinians

Via i24News:

Excerpts of secret diaries reportedly kept by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat published Sunday reveal a secret deal with Italy protecting it from attacks by Palestinian terrorists in exchange for freedom of movement in the country for Palestinian terror factions.

Excerpts of a 19-volume diary published by the Italian L’Expresso magazine confirmed the long-rumored non-aggression pact between Italy and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), headed for decades by Arafat.

“Italy is a Palestinian shore of the Mediterranean,” Arafat writes in one excerpt of the diaries, which were recently sold to a French foundation for studying.

In one of the most dramatic realizations of the agreement, authorities in Rome refused a US extradition request for the mastermind of the deadly 1985 hijacking of the Italian ship Achille Lauro, in which a wheelchair bound Jewish-American man was murdered, allowing the terrorists to escape Italy to Yugoslavia.

The deal between Rome and the Palestinians had been previously revealed in 2008 by former Italian president Francesco Cossiga, who wrote at the time that it was struck by former prime minister Aldo Mora.

Other reports have suggested the agreement dates back to 1973, when Giulio Andreotti who served as foreign minister at the time of the Achille Lauro standoff, was prime minister.

The PLO is said to have struck a similar deal with Switzerland during the 1970s, giving them free rein to move around the country provided they discontinue attacks on Swiss targets.

In the excerpts of the diaries published by L’Expresso, Arafat also reveals lying to Italian prosecutors in 1998 about receiving some 10 million lira (NIS 21.5 million) in aid money that actually went to the Italian Socialist Party in order to help former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi avoid fraud charges.

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