Zeevi murder mastermind convicted

The killing was one of the highest profile events of the early intifada

An Israeli court has convicted a Palestinian man of murder for his part in the 2001 assassination of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi.

The court ruled that Majdi Rimawi had recruited the men who carried out the killing and supplied them with arms.

He was also found guilty of attempted murder for his part in other militant attacks against Israelis.

Rimawi had been held in Palestinian detention but was seized in March 2006 when troops raided his Jericho jail.

The length of the sentence he will serve has not be announced.

Expulsion

Two Palestinians were given life sentences by an Israeli court in December 2007 for firing the shots which killed Tourism Minister Mr Zeevi, a hard-line nationalist who favoured the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.

A Palestinian militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, killed Mr Zeevi, apparently in retaliation for the killing of its leader by the Israeli army.

The PFLP is a radical left-wing organisation that does not recognise the right of Israel to exist.

Mr Zeevi was regarded as the most right-wing member of the Israeli government, headed at that time by Ariel Sharon.

He advocated a mass expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.