Free Republic

Hizballah terrorist Mohammed Ali Hamadi, convicted in Germany of murdering US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem aboard a hijacked airplane but freed last December in a probable ransom exchange for German hostage Susanne Osthoff (Germany denies this, of course), has rejoined Hizballah. Imagine my surprise.

Here is a tale of two hostages, one British, one German...Both are Arabic-speaking and Islamophile, both on self-appointed missions to "help" the Palestinians and the Iraqis respectively. Both were initially treated as heroines by the British and German media; both ended by colluding with their kidnappers, and both gave Islamism a propaganda coup. 'snip' Faced with this hullabaloo, the new coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel panicked. A ransom, believed to be as much as $5 million, was paid, thereby rewarding blackmail and offering an incentive for future abductions. But the kidnappers wanted more...One of the most notorious terrorists in...

Patrick and Katherine Stethem have forsaken their quiet life in a Loudoun [Virginia] suburb to call for justice. They don't relish the spotlight. But they'll go there if it will get the job done. The job is to get the U.S. government to use its influence to get Mohammed Ali Hamadi into a U.S. courtroom. To get the Lebanese government to turn Hamadi over. To get Hezbollah to assume the mantle of a legitimate political party. It's been 20 years since Hezbollah terrorists – two on a hijacked plane and two on the ground -- murdered Patrick Stethem's older brother,...

US vows to track down hijacker freed early By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 23/12/2005) The United States has vowed to track down and bring to trial a Lebanese hijacker who has been secretly released after serving 19 years in a German prison for seizing an airliner in 1985 and killing a US navy diver. The Bush administration said it had asked Germany not to release Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who was jailed for life for his role in the hijacking of TWA's Flight 847 from Athens to Rome and the shooting of one of the passengers, Robert Stethem. Despite...

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- A Hezbollah militant sentenced to life in Germany for murdering a U.S. Navy diver during the 1985 hijacking of a U.S. jetliner has been freed, officials said. The German government denied on Tuesday the release was related to the freeing of a German hostage in Iraq. Mohammed Ali Hamadi was released Thursday and allowed to return to his native Lebanon on the next day, after qualifying for parole after 19 years in prison, said Ulrich Hermanski, spokesman for the North Rhine Wesphalia state justice ministry. "There was no special treatment," Hermanski said in a telephone interview.