Month: September 2021

‘I saved Yasser Arafat’s picture before I burned down his Authority’s office.’ Palestinian militant Zakaria ZubeidI led a daring jailbreak, only to be captured again. I met him under the shadow of imminent Israeli missile attack.

12 September 2021 By Paul Martin

By Paul Martin. We sat on a balcony that overlooked the city of Jenin, soon after Zakaria ZubeidI had attacked and ransacked the office of the Governor of Jenin, his home town. The Governor was from the Palestinian Authority, which paid him and his men their salaries — though Zubeidi felt they were being underpaid […]

‘Winnie held his hand’: his doctor remembers Madiba’s last breath…. and that Nelson Mandela’s actual wife was not there.

10 September 2021 By Paul Martin

 His official date of death is December 5 2013, but on a wintry night six months earlier Nelson Mandela stopped breathing. Shortly after midnight on June 8 that year, Madiba, 94 and in frail health, was gently turned onto his left side in his bed in his Houghton home. He stopped breathing and had a “terminal event”. […]

A mother in torment. It’s twenty years since the 9-11 attacks. The mother of an admitted Al Qaeda would-be terrorist –Zacarias Moussaoui, jailed for life in the USA — speaks of her pain and his guilt.

10 September 2021 By Paul Martin

An extraordinary interview was filmed with Aicha El Wafi at her home and in a park in Narbonne, France, before her son Zacarias Moussaoui was jailed for life. It’s still relevant today – full not only of her personal pain, but also of insights into very mixed-up minds.