ACHILLE LAURO HIJACKING 1985

palestine facts dot org ^ | 4-2003

[doug from upland]

	Achille Lauro

What happened during the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985?

AP Photo

Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, 1985

On October 7, 1985 four heavily armed terrorists representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, with some 100 mostly elderly passengers on board, in Egyptian waters. The hijackers demanded that Israel free 50 Palestinian prisoners, and to prove their determination, they shot and killed a disabled American tourist, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, and threw his body overboard with his wheelchair. After a two-day drama, the Egyptian government, unaware that Klinghoffer had been murdered, provided the hijackers with safe passage in exchange for freeing the ship and its passengers.

Once the murder had been discovered, US Navy F-14 fighters intercepted an Egypt Air 737 airliner flying the hijackers to freedom in Tunisia and forced it to land in Sicily. The terrorists were taken into custody by Italian authorities, were tried and convicted to long prison terms.

But Bassam al-Asker, one of the Achille Lauro hijackers, was granted parole in 1991. Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi, another accomplice, disappeared in 1991 while on parole. Four others, including the mastermind, Abu Abbas, were convicted in absentia and remain at large.

AP Photo

Terrorist Abu Abbas

Abu Abbas, who was living freely in Yaser Arafat's Palestinian Authority territory, has publicly claimed that Leon Klinghoffer "provoked" his killers into shooting him. In an interview with the Boston Globe (June 26, 1998), Abbas was aksed why his men murdered Klinghoffer. He replied:

• He created troubles. He was handicapped but he was inciting and provoking the other passengers. So the decision was made to kill him.

What did this event have to do with Yasser Arafat and the PLO? According to Israeli intelligence reports and information relayed by Italian Defence Minister Giovanni Spadolini:

• ...the terrorists were in contact, via the ship's radio telephone, with a PLF [Palestine Liberation Front] co-ordinator in Genoa. He, in turn, got in touch with the PLO headquarters in Tunis for final instructions.

Arafat's relationship with Abbas, and the fact Abbas was a member of the PLO's Executive Committee from 1984 to 1991, led to the US decision to refuse Arafat a visa to enter the US to address the UN General Assembly in November 1988.

State Department spokesman James Rubin said on May 11, 1998, regarding the Abbas case:

• Well, let me say that the United States strongly believes that Abu Abbas should be punished for the crimes committed aboard the Achille Lauro in 1985. Abbas was tried in absentia in Italy in 1986, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. There are no charges pending against Abu Abbas in the United States. The statute of limitations has long since run out.

But a 1996 study by the Congressional Research Service found that, in fact, the statute of limitations has not expired, because the statute is suspended when the suspect is a fugitive from justice. The CRS, which is the official and authoritative research division of the U.S. Congress, examined the Abbas issue and compiled a detailed 14-page report on September 9, 1996. On the question of the statute of limitations, the report concluded (p.7):

• It would appear that section 3290 [of the U.S. Criminal Code] would operate to toll [suspend the expiration of] the statute of limitations in Abbas' case.

Abu Abbas was captured by U.S. Special Forces near Baghdad, Iraq on April 15, 2003.

[backhoe]

Achille Lauro Hijacking
Special Operations.Com. Achille Lauro Hijacking. ... This deployment included operations
in support of national tasking during the Achille Lauro Hijacking Crisis. ...
www.specialoperations.com/Images_Folder/ library2/achille.html - 7k - Cached - Similar pages

[Az Joe]

Hang him strapped into a wheel chair.