Corbyn pressed on wreath laying at the grave of a Black September terrorist

The 2014 visit to Tunisia is now also a subject of a parliamentary inquiry, after it has emerged that Corbyn failed to declare who paid for his wreath-laying trip to Tunisia.

The Labor Party now says that the trip, which included two nights in a hotel, had been funded by the Tunisian government.

Corbyn went to Tunisia to take part in a conference on Middle Eastern affairs, and used the occasion to lay a wreath at the graves of the PLO terrorists – members of the Black September unit —  who killed the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Five of the terrorists were killed by the German police.

Members of Parliament must register their trips with the House of Commons register of members’ interests, but the Times reports that Labor Party officials said yesterday that Corbyn had not registered the trip because it fell below the £660 registration threshold in effect at the time.

Critics of Corbyn, who referred the case to Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, noted that other British lawmakers who traveled to Tunisia to attend the conference did register their trips. The Conservative peer Lord Sheikh, who was also funded by the Tunisian government to attend the conference, declared it in the House of Lords’ register of interests, although he did not state the amount of the funding.

The MPs who referred Corbyn to the commissioner of standards noted that other MPs who traveled to Tunisia as guests of the Tunisian government, and who visited Tunisia at about the same time and for similar periods, have declared the value of flights and accommodation at more than £1,000.

On Tuesday, the Campaign against Antisemitism said that it had reported Corbyn to Kathryn Stone and asked her to investigate. “The public needs to know who paid for Jeremy Corbyn’s trip to honor the anti-Semitic Black September terrorists,” Stephen Silverman, the group’s director of investigations, said. “He has a track record of receiving donations from people with close links to terrorist organizations and extremists, and if he received funds which he has not declared for this trip then that needs to be investigated. The parliamentary commissioner for standards must tell the public who is pulling his strings.”

Corbyn yesterday continued to deny that he laid a wreath at the grave of the Black September terrorists, angrily responding to persistent questions by reporters:  “I was there when the wreaths were laid, that’s pretty obvious,” he said. “There were many others there who were witness to that. I witnessed many other people laying many wreaths. I laid one wreath along with many other people in memory, as I have said, of all those who died in the awful attack [on the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Tunis] in 1985, which, as I keep repeating… was condemned by the whole world.”

In response, Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt tweeted: “If Jeremy Corbyn thinks that terrorism is justified for the causes he believes in, how would he as prime minister have the moral authority to condemn terrorist murders of British citizens? Unbelievable and shocking.”