Forget Rocincamte--Fly TWA

Throughout the three-day trial in Rome's crowded criminal court last week, it was difficult to distinguish the prosecution from the defense. Both sides, in a torrent of rhetoric, apparently considered the U.S. the real culprit and not Defendant Raffaele Minichiello. A lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps, Minichiello, now 21, set a still unbroken record for long-distance skyjacking in October 1969, when he forced the crew of a TWA jet to fly 6,900 miles from California to Rome. At the time, Minichiello was AWOL and fleeing from a court-martial; he had broken into a PX because, he said, the Corps had cheated him out of $200 in pay, and he wanted to square accounts.

"Raffaele Minichiello is a good, hardworking boy, a frightened boy," said Prosecutor Antonio Scopelliti. "Life took him from the small, calm town of Melito Irpino, where he was born, to the inferno of Viet Nam, and from the fields of Melito to the chaotic city of New York. We believe in the Minichiello who fought bravely in the rains of Viet Nam and earned a medal."

Uncultured Peasant. Defense Attorney Giuseppe Sotgiu seemed to agree with the prosecutor's every word. "I am sure that Italian judges will understand and forgive an act born from a civilization of aircraft and war violence, a civilization which overwhelmed this uncultured peasant, this Don Quixote without Dulcinea, without Sancho Panza, who instead of mounting his Rocinante flew across the skies."

While Italy's penal code does not yet recognize skyjacking as a crime, Milnichiello faced a possible 32-year prison term on charges of assault, kidnaping and bringing into the country a "weapon of war"the Ml carbine with which he commandeered the plane. Convicted on all counts, Minichiello was sentenced to only 7 1/2 years in prisona year and a month more than the sympathetic prosecution had requested. He has already served one year of the sentence in Rome's bleak Queen of Heaven jail while awaiting trial. The penalty will be reduced by two more years as a result of a recent general amnesty, and another amnesty is expected in a couple of years. Moreover, he can get time off for good behavior. There is also a possibility that he will be free by next spring, for if the court does not respond to his appeal within six months, he will have to be released on "provisional liberty" until the court gets around to replying. Future skyjackers could hardly be discouraged by the leniency shown Minichiello. Had Minichiello faced the Marine court-martial for his original offense and been convicted, his maximum jail sentence would have been six months, with a bad-conduct discharge from the Corps.

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