WORLD IN BRIEF : TUNISIA : Arafat Aide’s Slayer Sentenced to Death

The PLO has sentenced to death the bodyguard who gunned down Salah Khalaf, the group’s second-in-command, on the eve of the Persian Gulf War, Palestinian sources said in Tunis. Hamza Abu Zid, who was handed over to the Palestine Liberation Organization by Tunisian authorities, is to be executed in Yemen sometime after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends in mid-April, the sources said. Zid, 30, who once worked for Abu Nidal, broke ranks with his former boss in the late 1980s and joined the PLO. On Jan. 14, Zid killed Khalaf, PLO security chief Hayel Abdel-Hamid, and Abdel-Hamid’s chief bodyguard, Abu Mohammed Al-Omari, during a meeting at Abdel-Hamid’s home in Carthage.