The New York Times · 20 June 1986

CP-1986-018

Hijacker of the Achille Lauro Recants Confession of Killing

By ROBERTO SURO

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Transcribed from the clipping

GENOA, Italy, June 19 — In defiant but often contradictory court testimony, the Palestinian gunman who prosecutors say once confessed to killing a disabled New York man during the Achille Lauro hijacking denied today that the crime had ever taken place. According to the confession, which the court said was given to a prosecutor Nov.

8 and which was made public today, Leon Klinghoffer, who was confined to a wheelchair, was chosen to be killed “so that everyone would know that we did not have any pity for anyone.” Magid al-Molqi, accused of being the assassin, is one of 15 men on trial here for various crimes connected with the hijacking of the cruise ship in October.

After being read the confession and being reminded of the many witnesses who confirmed it, Mr. Molqi told a court here: “I have not killed. This is not true. This person was never on the ship. He was never seen by me or my comrades. It was a scheme created by the United States and Syria.” Mr.

Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old New Yorker, was vacationing on the ship with his wife when it was hijacked off the coast of Egypt on Oct. 7. Prosecutors in the trial, which began Wednesday, say he was killed as part of a plot to force an exchange of Palestinians held in Israeli jails for hostages among the ship’s passengers. “It is true.

I killed the American passenger,” Mr. Molqi said in the confession given to the Italian authorities. The killing took place the afternoon of Oct. 8 as the hijackers were unsuccessfully trying to force the Syrian authorities to let them dock in the port of Tartus so the exchange could take place.

According to the statement read in court, the decision to start killing passengers was made after the hijackers decided the Syrians were stalling. Mr. Klinghoffer, unable to get out of his wheelchair, was pushed to the stern of the ship, and then, Mr. Molqi said, “I fired two shots at the American, one to the chest and one to the head.”

No one actually witnessed the shooting, prosecutors said. Today, Mr. Molqi repeatedly told the judge that neither he nor the other three hijackers committed the murder, and instead insisted Mr. Klinghoffer’s death was “a game between the Syrians and the Americans.”

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