France had entered into an agreement with Palestinian terrorists, reports intnews.org. Paris allowed Palestinian militants to operate freely on its territory in exchange for not receiving terrorist attacks. The news leaked directly from the former director of the French national security service. The alleged agreement was reached between the French government and a group of Palestinian militants known as the Abu Nidal Organization, or ANO. The group's official name was Fatah - The Revolutionary Council, but it was usually referred to by the name of its founder and leader, Abu Nidal. The group was formed in 1974 after a split in Fatah, the Palestinian armed group led by Yasser Arafat. Abu Nidal (real name Sabri Khalil al-Banna) accused Arafat and other senior officials from Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of being conciliatory towards Israel. Eventually Abu Nidal moved to Iraq and declared war on Fatah and the PLO, accusing them of betraying the Palestinian cause.
Over the next 20 years, ANO carried out dozens of violent attacks that killed over 1500 people around the world, in countries such as Great Britain, Austria, Italy, Tunisia, Sudan, Turkey, Pakistan and India. The main targets of the ANO were Israel, the United States and other Palestinian groups, which the group regarded as defectors from the struggle for an independent Palestine. On August 9, 1982, ANO guerrillas used grenades and machine guns to attack the Goldenberg restaurant in Paris, France, killing six people and injuring 22 people. The attackers fled the crime scene and were never caught. It was only in 2015 that former members of the ANO provided evidence of the terrorist attack to French magistrates after obtaining immunity. Based on these testimonies, the French government has issued arrest warrants for three of the attackers living in Europe and Palestine today. However, no one has yet been extradited to France.
The plot deepened last Thursday when the French newspaper Le Parisien reported excerpts of testimony provided to magistrates investigating the attack on the Goldenberg Restaurant. One of the testimonies would have been provided by former spy Yves Bonnet, who in the 80s headed the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DST). Until 2008, the DST functioned as a counter-intelligence and counter-terrorist wing of the French National Police. According to Le Parisien, Bonnet, now 83, said in his testimony that the DST struck an agreement with Abu Nidal after 1982, which allowed them to continue operating in France with the knowledge that they would not carry out any further terrorist attacks on the French soil. "We have made an oral agreement," Bonnet is said to have told magistrates. “I don't want any further attacks on French soil, and in exchange I will allow you to enter France. The former spy added that the DST informed the chief of staff of the French president at the time, François Mitterrand, about the secret agreement. However, nothing about the agreement was ever recorded in the official meeting minutes. The deal between DST and Abu Nidal "was successful," Bonnet said, as the group did not carry out any more attacks on French soil after the attack on the Goldenberg Restaurant.
As expected, Le Parisien's accusations angered the French Jewish community. A committee representing the victims and affected families of the attack on the Goldenberg restaurant said through his lawyer that, if true, Bonnet's admission was "shameful". The committee called on the French government to declassify all documents relating to exchanges between the French state and the Abu Nidal organization.