The New York Times · 11 June 1986

CP-1986-016

Italians Say Abbas Masterminded Ship Hijacking

By E. J. DIONNE Jr.

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Transcribed from the clipping

ROME, June 10 — A report by Italian prosecutors has accused the Palestinian leader Mohammed Abbas of masterminding the hijacking of the Italian liner Achille Lauro last October. The report, a copy of which was made available here today, also defends the Palestinian cause and repeatedly praises Yasir Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman.

And it upholds Italy’s decision to free Mr. Abbas, despite a request by the United States that he be held on suspicion of organizing the hijacking. The report, which will be the basis of the state’s case against 16 men implicated in the hijacking, describes the information provided by the United States at the time Mr.

Abbas was being held here as “inadequate,” even though it acknowledges that the information eventually proved correct. The report by the Genoa magistrates, who said in March that they would bring Mr.

Abbas to trial as the leader of the hijackers, said he had “created the action, chose the perpetrators, trained them for their particular task, gave the orders to the ‘commando.’” The Italian trial, covering a variety of charges, including hijacking itself and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled 69-year-old American, is scheduled to open on June 18, with Mr.

Abbas and most of the other defendants still at large. The prosecutors have said there is virtually no chance that Mr. Abbas will be caught and tried. One of the report’s most striking aspects was the sympathetic attitude it expresses toward the Palestinian movement and the number times it specifically defends Mr. Arafat.

“This case falls within the struggle of the Palestinian people,” the report says. The Palestinians, “having lost their own land, intend to carry out a struggle to reconquer their national territory and end the disastrous (and, at times, inhuman) effects of the new diaspora.” The report repeatedly distinguishes Mr.

Arafat’s policies from those of Mr. Abbas and his Palestine Liberation Front.

“The method of Arafat’s struggle,” the prosecutors said, “is that of not bringing military episodes beyond the territory of Palestine in order not to run the risk of being accused of ‘terrorism,’ repudiated by patriots but necessarily attributed to them by those states against which acts of violence occur.”

The prosecutors appeared to be referring to Israel. The report is moving in its description of the murder of Mr. Klinghoffer, which it describes as “the extreme of ferociousness and inhumanity.” Mr. Klinghoffer, the report says, was the “victim of the violence which annihilates life simply because he was American, Jewish and handicapped.”

Although the Italian judiciary is independent of the political authorities, the report closely follows official Italian Government policy, and the Government was clearly pleased with the conclusions. Antonio Badini, Prime Minister Bettino Craxi’s diplomatic counselor, said, “I think it’s rather objective, a good report, accurate.”

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