Achille Lauro hijacking

On October 7, 1985, four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) hijacked the Italian MS Achille Lauro liner off Egypt as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said. Muhammad Zaidan, leader of the PLF, masterminded the hijacking. One elderly Jewish man, the wheelchair bound Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered by the hijackers and thrown overboard.

The Achille Lauro in 1989

Background

Throughout the 1980s, the PLF launched attacks on both civilian and military targets in the north of Israel, across the Lebanese border. The attack was perpetrated as retaliation for the Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarter in Tunis (Operation Wooden Leg) a couple of days earlier, which had killed 60 PLO members, including several leaders of Force 17, and several of Yasser Arafat's bodyguards.

Hijacking

On October 7, 1985, four PLF militants men hijacked the Achille Lauro liner off Egypt. The hijackers had been surprised by a crew member and acted prematurely. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons.

Murder of Leon Klinghoffer

The next day, after being refused permission by the Syrian government to dock at Tartus, the hijackers singled out Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish retired businessman who was in a wheelchair, for murder, shooting him in the forehead and chest as he sat in his wheelchair. They then forced the ship's barber and a waiter to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. Marilyn Klinghoffer, who did not witness the shooting, was told by the hijackers that he had been moved to the infirmary. She only learned the truth after the hijackers left the ship at Port Said. PLO Foreign Secretary Farouq Qaddumi said that perhaps the terminally ill Marilyn Klinghoffer had killed her husband for insurance money;^[1] however, the PLO later accepted responsibility, apologized, and reached a financial settlement with the Klinghoffer family.^[2][3]

Aftermath

The ship headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.

United States President Ronald Reagan deployed the Navy's SEAL Team Six and Delta Force to stand-by and prepare for a possible rescue attempt to free the vessel from its hijackers.

Reagan ordered that the plane be intercepted by F-14 Tomcats from the VF-74 "BeDevilers" and the VF-103 "Sluggers" of Carrier Air Wing 17, based on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga,^[4] on October 10 and directed to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella, a NATO base in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested by the Italians^[5] after a disagreement between American and Italian authorities. The other passengers on the plane (including the hijackers' leader, Muhammad Zaidan) were allowed to continue on to their destination,^[6] despite protests by the United States. Egypt demanded an apology from the U.S. for forcing the airplane off course.

Disagreement between Italy and U.S.

Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi claimed Italian territorial rights over the NATO base. Italian Air Force personnel and Carabinieri lined up facing the United States Navy SEALs which had arrived with two C-141s. Other Carabinieri were sent from Catania to reinforce the Italians. It was the gravest diplomatic crisis between Italy and United States and was resolved five hours later.^[7]

Hijackers

PLF leader Muhammad Zaidan (Abu Abbas) and PLO political officer Hassan were among the hijackers. Due to insider deals within the Italian government, they were both flown from Sigonella to Ciampino airport (a mixed military and civil airport SE of Rome). From there, dressed in Italian air force officers' flight suits, they boarded a Yugoslav civilian airliner destined to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Despite American requests for the extradition of Zaidan from Yugoslavia, he was not extradited due to Yugoslav relations with the PLO. Zaidan then flew to Aden, South Yemen and from there to Baghdad where Saddam Hussein sheltered him from extradition to Italy. He remained in Iraq and commanded the P.L.F. (reunited in 1989) until the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Italy, whose government had previously let Abu Abbas leave the country without being arrested, sentenced Zaidan in absentia to five terms of life imprisonment for his role in the hijacking. He was also wanted in the U.S. for crimes including terrorism, piracy, and murder. In 1996, he made an apology for the Achille Lauro hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghoffer and advocated peace talks between Palestinians and Israel; the apology was rejected by the U.S. government and Klinghoffer's family. Abbas was captured in Iraq in 2003 by the U.S. military during its 2003 invasion of Iraq. He died in U.S. custody March 8, 2004.

The fate of those convicted of the hijacking is varied:

• Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi disappeared in 1991 while on parole, but in 1994 was known to Spanish authorities, during the trial of Monzer al-Kassar^[8]
• Bassam al-Asker was granted parole in 1991. He was thought to have died on February 21, 2004, but according to the Lebanese Daily Star, in 2007 he was found in Lebanon, a Fatah (PLO) fighter and commander, training Palestinian militiamen to fight the US army alongside Iraqi rebels, and loyal to Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Maazen) the head of the Palestinian Authority. He reached Lebanon after 14 years in Iraq, where he personally fought against American soldiers, alongside his trainees.^[9]
• Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. He served 20 and three more on parole and on July 7, 2008, he was expelled from an illegal immigrant detention center in Rome. He plans to appeal this arguing that he has nowhere else to go since Lebanon will not allow his return as he was born in a refugee camp and is thus not a Lebanese citizen.
• Youssef Majed al-Molqi, convicted of killing Leon Klinghoffer [1], was sentenced to 30 years, left the Rebibbia prison in Rome on February 16, 1996, on a 12-day furlough, and fled to Spain, where he was recaptured and extradited back to Italy. On April 29, 2009, Italian officials released him from prison on good behaviour.^[10] In June 2009, however, al-Molqui's attorney told the Associated Press that the Italian authorities had placed his client in a holding cell and were about to deport him to Syria.^[11] According to several sources, the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas was personally involved in al-Moliqui's release, although officially denied.^{[citation needed]}

PLO lawsuit

The PLO was sued for its role in the death of Leon Klinghoffer. The $1.5 billion suit was dropped when the PLO paid an undisclosed sum to Klinghoffer's daughters.^[3] The family founded the Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League.^[3]

Film and Opera

Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair (1990) is a TV Drama/Action movie based on the hijacking, starring Burt Lancaster - Eva Marie Saint and directed by Alberto Negrin.^[12]

The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) is an opera by John Adams and Alice Goodman after a concept of theatre director Peter Sellars. Its depiction of the hijacking has proved controversial.

References