Originally published on January 2, 2013
An envoy from the Palestinian Authority has been killed at his residence in Prague. The New year's Day explosion occurred after Ambassador Jamal al-Jamal opened a safe that had reportedly not been opened in decades.
The Palestinian mission in Prague had recently moved locations and the safe had been moved from the embassy's old offices to the ambassador's residence, a prelude to a move into new offices.
After noticing the safe, Mr Jamal called his wife into the room and asked her to get a pen and paper so he could make a list of the contents of the safe. Seconds after Jamal's wife left the room, an explosion tore through the room.
The ambassador suffered major injuries to his chest, abdomen and head and died in hospital several hours later.
Reuters reports that Czech police believe the blast was part of a security measure that is featured on some safes whereby small charges are left inside safes which can trigger explosives that destroy sensitive documents in the event of the safe being tampered with.
It's unclear why the envoy was unaware of the contents of the deadly safe, but reports say it had been sitting at the old mission for so long, the knowledge that it had lethal security measures may simply have been forgotten.
Jamal's wife was treated for smoke inhalation and shock, but was otherwise unharmed. Jamal al-Jamal joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1975 and after peace accords were signed with Israel in the mid-1990s, he served as a diplomat for the Palestinian Authority in Egypt, the former Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and in late 2013, he became the envoy to the Czech Republic.
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