Hamas spokesman released

The spokesman for the Palestinian Hamas movement, Abdul Aziz Rantisi, has announced that the Palestinian government has handed him his personal identity card after it released him two weeks earlier in order to take part in the funeral of his mother and to accept condolences on her death.

Rantisi added, "After the condolence period I returned to the Palestinian police and restored my ID and I am still free following a 15-month detention."

Rantisi was arrested in April, 1998 during great tensions in relations between the Palestinian government and the Hamas movement following the killing of Hamas military chief Muheyeddine al-Sharif in mysterious circumstances.