Al Jazeera Speaks to Arafat's Widow

Al Jazeera speaks to Arafat's widow

WIKI: Suha Arafat, Yasser Arafat’s widow »

Yasser Arafat's Widow Says Her Marriage Was 'A Big Mistake'

THE GUARDIAN: Suha Arafat says she tried to leave hundreds of times and would not have married if she had known what was in store

Yasser Arafat's widow has said she tried to leave her husband hundreds of times and that had she known what marriage to the Palestinian leader would be like, she would never have gone through with it.

Suha Arafat told the Turkish newspaper Sabah that she had loved her husband but the marriage "was a big mistake and I regret it". "I know there were a lot of women that wanted to marry Arafat, but he wanted only me. It was my fate," she said.

The couple married secretly in Tunisia in 1990, when Suha was 27 and Arafat 61. Their daughter Zahwa was born five years later.

Her mother had opposed the match, she said. "Later I understood why. Had I known what I would endure, I clearly wouldn't have married him … True, he was a great leader, but I was lonely."

"I tried to leave him hundreds of times, but he wouldn't let me. Everyone knows how he wouldn't permit me to leave. Especially those in his servitude, they know very well what it was like."

Suha converted from Christianity to Islam at the time of her marriage. She led an isolated life for security reasons, she said. "I had to be careful in my phone conversations because of bugging, and we were always moving from one location to another," she added. "My identity was completely destroyed." » | Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem | Sunday, February 10, 2013