Palestinian goes free

The Palestinian who allegedly bombed La Belle discotheque in Berlin in 1986, providing President Ronald Reagan with his casus belli for bombing Libya, was acquitted by a Lebanese court in Sidon yesterday of murdering a Libyan dissident in Germany two years earlier, writes Robert Fisk from Beirut.

The president of the court, Mohamed Moallem, decided that there was a 'lack of convincing evidence' from the German government to convict Yasser Chreidi, from the Ein Helweh refugee camp, of the killing of Mustafa Ashek in West Berlin on 29 March 1984. But Mr Chreidi's discharge may clear the way for his extradition to Berlin on the disco-bombing charges.