Corbyn: I won’t say sorry for being at Martyrs Cemetery

JEREMY Corbyn said he will not apologise for attending an event at a Palestinian Martyrs Cemetery as he was trying to “promote peace in the Middle East”.

The Labour leader had been widely criticised after he said he was present when wreaths were laid at the Tunis site in 2014 to the victims of an attack in Paris in 1992 but did not think he was “actually involved in it”.

Mr Corbyn’s comments on Monday prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accuse him of honouring one of the founders of the Black September terror group which carried out the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, who died in the incident in the French capital.

Speaking during a visit yesterday to the Harper Adams University in Newport, Shropshire, Mr Corbyn insisted the wreath he laid at the cemetery in Tunis was to commemorate all those killed during an Israeli air strike on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s offices in the city in 1985.

“I , al ong with other colleagues... laid a wreath in memory of those who died in the hope that we have a peace process and peace in the future so those raids are never repeated,” he said.

“I’m not apologising for being there at all. I went to a conference to try and promote peace in the Middle East.”

The row originally erupted after the Daily Mail published pictures of Mr Corbyn holding a wreath at the cemetery which it said were taken in front of a plaque honouring the founder of Black September.

A Tory peer has confirmed he was also at the peace conference in Tunis, which Mr Corbyn attended, and that members of Hamas may also have been present.

Lord Sheikh, the founder of the Conservative Muslim Foundation, said he did not meet any figures from the banned terrorist organisation and did not attend the wreath-laying ceremony at the Palestinian cemetery.