Armed Palestinian captured in British embassy

JERUSALEM, Aug 31 (Reuters) A Palestinian who broke into the British embassy's car park in Tel Aviv demanding asylum was captured by Israeli police today after an eight-hour standoff in which he had threatened to shoot himself.

Nadim Injaz said he wanted to go to Britain because he had been shunned by Israel and his own people after informing for the Jewish state. Police said he had been carrying a toy pistol.

''The police anti-terrorist unit moved in and captured the suspect at the first opportunity we had,'' police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. ''There were no injuries to the unit or to the individual.'' Rosenfeld said the intruder had climbed over the car park's fence at 1445 hrs. In a telephone call broadcast on Channel 2 TV during the standoff, Injaz said he would kill himself unless his demand for a new life in Britain was met.

Israeli reporters said Injaz had contacted them days before the embassy incident warning he was about to take ''extreme action''. They identified him as a Palestinian who worked briefly as an informer for Israel's Shin Bet security agency.

He has been living illegally in the Jewish state and police said he petitioned an Israeli court recently for a residency permit on the basis of his past service as an informer.

''I appealed to a court, to all the authorities. No one wants to help me,'' he said in the phone call broadcast on Channel 2, whose news anchors addressed him by name and appealed to him to surrender.

Injaz said Israeli authorities had told him to go back to the West Bank but Palestinians threatened to kill him as a collaborator if he went home, unless he carried out an attack against Israelis.

Injaz told Channel 2 that after being turned down for residency by Israel and threatened by his own people, he felt his only option was to seek help from Britain.

''What could I do? Carry out an attack and kill Jews? So I jumped into the embassy (parking lot),'' he said. ''If I were a Jew under threat in Berlin, would they send me back to Germany?'' Israeli media said Injaz had asked to meet the British ambassador and then be taken to the airport and flown to Britain.

Rosenfeld said the police unit, dressed in battle gear and armed with assault rifles, had taken ''all precautions'' for fear the intruder was carrying explosives.

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