According to an Israeli journalist interviewed by Israel’s Army Radio, the Palestinian Authority's official in charge of the Jerusalem File, Faisal Al Husseini, died of a heart attack on Thursday in Kuwait after a verbal quarrel with Kuwaiti police officers who wanted to arrest one of his guards.
Reuters confirmed the story, identifying the guard as Nasser Qawwas, who is wanted by Kuwait for “security crimes” he allegedly committed during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait between 1990-1991.
Husseini, 61, who arrived in Kuwait on Tuesday on the first visit by a Palestinian minister to the Gulf Arab state in 11 years, died at his hotel before the start of a conference of non-governmental groups on Thursday, said Reuters.
Husseini was born in Baghdad in 1940.
The son of Abdel Qhader Husseini, a military leader who died during the battle for Jerusalem in April 1948, and the nephew of Hajj Amin Husseini, then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Faisal comes from an aristocratic Palestinian family.
He was regarded as the most important leader of the Fateh faction in the West Bank.
His involvement with the PLO went back to 1964, after his sciences studies, when he worked for the organization's office in Jerusalem.
Founder and head of the famed Arab Studies Society based in occupied east Jerusalem, he was also a pioneer in Palestinian-Israeli dialogue efforts.
Jailed by Israel for one year in 1967, he was placed under constant house arrest from 1982 to 1987.
He then served numerous administrative detention terms, one lasting ten months in 1987-1988.
Because he is a native of east Jerusalem, he was rejected as a negotiator by the Israeli side in the negotiations process which started in Madrid in 1991. But he nonetheless became leader of the unofficial PLO-linked advisory committee of the Palestinian delegation to the peace conference.
While running the Orient House, he welcomed prominent foreign personalities visiting east Jerusalem.
Comments by Husseini on improving ties with Kuwait, severed since the Gulf country accused the Palestinian leadership of supporting Iraq during its 1990-1991 occupation of Kuwait, triggered an uproar in Kuwait's parliament on Wednesday.
Several MPs had told Husseini that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was "persona non grata" in Kuwait.
Opposition MP Ahmad Al Saadoun, a three-time former speaker, strongly criticized Husseini for saying upon arrival that "God willing" Arafat would visit Kuwait.
"We hope the dark day when we see Arafat and his men in Kuwait will never come," MP Waleed Al Jerri said.
Parliament speaker Jassem Al Khorafi said Kuwaitis would not welcome the Palestinian president, adding that he did not believe an official invitation would be extended.
Voicing the position of several MPs, Saadoun said the Palestinian president, who once worked in Kuwait and formed his Fateh resistance group there in 1959, was "persona non grata."
But Husseini, further angering MPs, came to parliament on Wednesday and spent two hours discussing the deep rift between the PA and Kuwait with four members of a foreign relations panel – Albawaba.com
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