Achille Lauro hijacking
| Date | 7 October 1985 - 10 October 1985 |
|---|---|
| Location | off the coast of Egypt, Mediterranean |
| Planners | Mossad |
| Perpetrators | Palestine Liberation Front |
| Deaths | 1 |
The Achille Lauro hijacking took place on 7 October 1985, when the Italian ocean liner MS Achille Lauro was hijacked by four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front off the coast of Egypt, as she was sailing from Alexandria to Ashdod, Israel.
The hijacking is most remembered for when a 69-year-old Jewish American man in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered by the hijackers and thrown overboard - something which also was a PR-disaster for the Palestinian cause and solidified the overseas Jewish support for Israel.
The hijacking sparked the Sigonella Crisis, the most serious post-World War II diplomatic crisis between Italy and the United States.
The events
The hijacking took place in October 1985 and was carried out by four members of the Palestine Liberation Front. Wikipedia covers the details of the hijacking extensively.
The hijackers demanded the release of 50 Palestinians in Israeli captivity but, after Egyptian mediation, agreed to release the hostages in exchange for freedom on 9 October. However, the plane they were flown on after releasing the hostages was forced to land in Italy by American fighter jets, where the hijackers were arrested and sentenced to prison. Palestinian Liberation Front leader Abu Abbas, who was also on the plane, was not arrested, however, as the Italians deemed there was insufficient evidence that he was behind the hijacking, and he left the country after two days. In 1986, however, he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by an Italian court.
Mossad black op
Abu Abbas conveniently dead
In 2003, Abbas was captured by US forces in Iraq. Citing the Palestinian-Israeli Interim Agreement of September 28, 1995, the Palestinian Authority considered that Abbas should be released (according to the agreement, no member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) shall be prosecuted or arrested for acts committed before the Oslo Accords were concluded on September 13, 1993). However, the United States argued that the agreement only applies to relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and that it was therefore not applicable in this case. Abbas later died in US custody, according to the US he died of natural causes of a heart attack. The Palestine Liberation Front, for its part, held the United States responsible for the death of its leader.[1]
