THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN/TIMES · 20 April 1984

CP-1984-052

Photograph Raises Questions About Fate of Bus Hijacker

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Transcribed from the clipping

Editor’s Note: The following dispatch was submitted to the Israeli military censor, who ordered several changes. TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A news photograph of a man, apparently unhurt, who was being led away in handcuffs from the scene of last week’s bus hijacking has raised questions about the circumstances of the death of one hijacker.

The official version given by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and an Israeli military spokesman was that two terrorists were killed outright when Israeli troops stormed the bus early Friday and two others died of wounds on their way to a hospital.

But unpublished photographs show one, and possibly two, men who were obviously alive and uninjured being led from the scene after the raid had freed two dozen hostages.

One Israeli hostage, 19-year-old woman soldier Irit Portugues, was killed and seven were wounded during the 10-hour drama that began Thursday night on the coastal highway between Ashdod and the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip.

Photographers who boarded the bus shortly after the hostages were freed reported seeing two dead hijackers — one in the driver’s seat, a second in the rear of the bus. A civilian medical worker at the scene told an Associated Press reporter a third hijacker was severely wounded, but he could not account for the fourth.

Initial army statements on Friday said two hijackers were killed and two captured. Later that day it was announced all four hijackers had been killed. Shamir, asked about the apparent discrepancy, said in an interview published Monday that “when they were captured, two of them were severely wounded and afterwards died of their wounds.”

Alex Levac, a photographer for the daily Hadashot newspaper, said he took a picture of a man who seemed to be a suspect about two minutes after the bus was stormed.The picture, seen by an AP reporter, shows a dark complexioned man with curly hair in handcuffs walking between two plainclothes security men.

AP photographer Max Nash, who witnessed the rescue raid, said he saw a man in custody at the scene, his hands tied behind his back and his feet shackled. The Israeli weekly magazine Koterct Rashit said three other Israeli photographers took pictures of a man being forcibly led to interrogation.

“There is considerable doubt if we are talking about the same man photographed by Hadashot,” the magazine said. None of the pictures was approved by the Israeli military censor for publication.

One of the three Israeli photographers, Shmuel Rahmani of the daily Maariv, said he took a full length photo of a man with his head down walking between Israeli army soldiers and a crowd in the background. His shirt and pants were stained, but it was not possible to say for certain if the photo was of the same man in the Hadashot picture.

Yossi Klein, editor of Hadashot, told the AP one of his reporters showed the picture taken by Levac to relatives and friends of a man identified as one of the hijackers — Majid Ahmed Abu Jama, 18, of Bani Sohella in the Gaza Strip. He said they positively identified the photograph as that of Abu Jama.

“Our reporter asked them who was shown in the picture, not if it was Abu Jama,” Klein said. A headshot a friend of Abu Jama provided to Hadashot appeared to be one taken a year or two earlier, but with the same distinctive nose and curly brown hair.

The New York Times quoted Abu Jama’s mother Fatima as confirming the picture of the man being led away from the hijack scene was that of her son. But Klein said he also showed the photo of the man being led away to four of the 35 hostages, including the bus driver, and none could identify him.

The Jerusalem Post quoted an army spokesman as saying that photographs of people being led away from the scene were probably pictures of Arab passengers who were not involved in the hijacking. Commenting on the conflicting reports, the daily Haaretz newspaper, said in an editorial that “terrorists who are not killed in clashes with our security forces should be put on trial.

We do not recognize terrorists as soldiers ... but this non-recognition doesn’t justify executing them after battle.”

How this transcription was made

FLAG FOR EVA — the masthead as printed is “THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN/TIMES”, with the slash, not “The Daily Oklahoman” as Maria’s label has it. This is a combined-edition slug (the Oklahoma City morning and afternoon papers ran a joint plate). I have recorded what the page prints. Do not create a new publication without checking against the archive’s existing spelling first; a slash variant could split a paper in two. — Read directly from the folio line: “Friday, April 20, 1984”. 20 April 1984 was a Friday. The body refers to “last week’s bus hijacking” and to the bus being stormed “early Friday” (13 April 1984) — consistent. Agrees with Maria’s label. — Complete article, six columns, ending at the rule at the foot of the page. Printed as set and not repaired: the magazine name appears as “Koterct Rashit” (the letters after “Kot” are broken in the impression; the reading given is my best at 17x and the usual spelling is Koteret Rashit — treat it as uncertain); “stormed.The picture” with no space after the period; “the daily Haaretz newspaper, said in an editorial” with a stray comma. The photographer is “Shmuel Rahmani” here against “Shmuel Rachmani” in the New York Times version on slide 75 — both spellings preserved in their own records.

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