NICOSIA, Cyprus -- Cypriot authorities said today Israel had formally requested the extradition of three Palestinian gunmen who killed three Israelis on a yacht at the Larnaca marina.
The government said Thursday night it would reject an extradition request.
'The three men under arrest are being interrogated and will be brought to trial in Cypriot courts, which are the only competent authorities to try them,' a government statement said.
Spokesman Elias Georghiades said the extradition request was delivered by Israeli Ambassador Meir Gavish to Andreas Mavrommatis, director general of the Cypriot Foreign Ministry, and passed on to the attorney general.
Georghiades said Thursday that Cyprus and Israel were signatories to a 1977 agreement to combat terrorism, but noted there was no extradition agreement between the two countries.
In any event, extradition is normally used to return international fugitives to the country where the crime was committed.
Several Palestinians and other Arabs have been sentenced to long prison terms by Cypriot courts for terrorism, but all have been released within a few months of their trials.
The three gunmen boarded an Israeli-owned yacht in Larnaca harbor Wednesday morning and killed a woman and two men -- Reuven and Esther Palzur and Avraham Avnery, all in their 50s. The bodies were flown to Israel Thursday night.
The attackers, who surrendered after a 10-hour stand-off with Cypriot police, demanded the release of 20 Palestinian guerrillas captured at sea last month by Israeli forces while sailing to Lebanon.
The three Palestinians -- named in court as Elias Yehia Nasif, Mahmoud Khaled Abdallah and Georges Hanna, all in their 20s -- were remanded in police custody for eight days by a Larnaca court Thursday.
