Questions About a Damascus Connection

By Jill Smolowe

Through three hours of courtroom testimony, she had barely raised her voice above a whisper. Now Ann Marie Murphy, 32, fixed her gaze on the Jordanian defendant, Nezar Hindawi, and unleashed the rage she had nursed since April 17, the day she was detained at London's Heathrow Airport with a 3 1/4-lb. bomb and a detonator in her luggage. "You bastard you! How could you do that to me?" she shrieked. "I hate you! I hate you!" Hindawi, also 32, appeared unmoved by the outburst. As his trial began last week at London's Old Bailey courthouse, Hindawi faced charges of trying to blow up an El Al jet by planting a time bomb in the bag of his pregnant fiancee. Had the plot succeeded, Murphy and the 374 other people aboard would have perished somewhere over Austria. Declared Prosecutor Roy Amlot: "It was one of the most callous acts of all time."

Hindawi was not the only one on trial at the Old Bailey. According to Amlot, Hindawi told British police that Syrian military-intelligence officers had helped plan the attack, supplying him with a Syrian passport and $12,000 as well as the Czech-made plastic explosives found in Murphy's carry-on satchel. "There is convincing evidence," Amlot told the twelve jurors, "he was acting in concert with agents of the Syrian government." Hindawi has pleaded not guilty.

So have the Syrians. Damascus mounted a vigorous campaign last week to distance itself from terrorist attacks in the Mediterranean and Western Europe, most recently in Paris, where a wave of bombings last month left ten people dead and more than 160 injured. In an interview with TIME (see following story), Syrian President Hafez Assad denied that Syria had anything to do with the attempted bombing of the El Al jetliner and charged that Hindawi's actions were part of an Israeli plot to discredit Damascus. The farfetched theme was echoed by Loutof Haydar, Syria's Ambassador to Britain, whom Hindawi has implicated in the El Al scheme. Haydar reportedly dismissed the charge as a "setup to defame Syria." In addition, the state-controlled Damascus Radio charged that U.S. and Israeli agents were responsible for a "wider campaign against Syria."

The denials did little to allay growing Western convictions that Damascus supports and facilitates terrorism, even if it does not actively conduct attacks, in its fight against Israel and Jerusalem's Western allies. In France, parliamentary support for the conservative government's stance on terrorism seemed to falter last week as suspicions hardened in some quarters that Syria may have abetted the bombers. A raucous debate erupted last Wednesday after Premier Jacques Chirac told the National Assembly, "There can be no discussion, direct or indirect, with terrorists." Opposition deputies sharply questioned the government's appeals to Syria for help in tracking down the Paris bombers. Fumed Socialist Lionel Jospin: "If Country X in the Middle East is involved, why ask its help?"

Suspicions about Syria's role were bolstered by an interview with Pierre Marion, head of France's foreign-intelligence operations in 1981-82. Marion said that during his term he met twice with Assad's brother Rifaat, who at the time headed one of Syria's secret-service branches. "I looked him in the eyes and I said, 'Your Excellency, you are going to promise me that there will be no more terrorist attacks in France,'" Marion recalled. "He promised it to me and he kept his word."

In Paris, an official of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization alleged that Syria was behind new threats in France. Among those advocating attacks last week was the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, which demanded the release of several militants jailed in France. More chilling, the group's communique suggested that French Journalist Jean-Paul Kauffmann, who is one of eight French citizens being held hostage in Lebanon, should be executed as a "Zionist spy" to protest a visit to Paris last week by Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

Kauffmann's abductors, the extremist Shi'ite Islamic Jihad, had different ideas. Apparently hoping to capitalize on the U.S.-Soviet deal that resulted in the release of American Journalist Nicholas Daniloff, the Iranian-backed group on Oct. 3 released a videotape of two of the six remaining American hostages, Terry Anderson and David Jacobsen. Both men charged that the Reagan Administration was not pursuing their release as vigorously as it had sought Daniloff s. Three days later the kidnapers released a videotape of three French hostages.

For the first time, the shadowy group promised to free the three Frenchmen if Paris secured the release of 17 Shi'ite terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait for the 1983 bombing attacks on the U.S. and French embassies--a long-standing condition for freeing the U.S. hostages. While the Americans in captivity seemed bitter, the Frenchmen sounded desperate. Kauffmann told his family, "It is horrible to say perhaps I will never see you again, but it is the truth." Diplomat Marcel Fontaine warned, "I cannot stand anymore." In Paris, Kauffmann's wife Joelle called on French officials to "show proof they are capable of saving the innocent."

Throughout, Western attention remained focused on Damascus. Both French and U.S. officials recall that the Syrians played a leading role last year in negotiating the release of 39 Americans held hostage aboard a TWA jet in Beirut, and that they helped free three Soviet hostages in Beirut last October. In Washington and Paris, the hope remains that something will come of Assad's promise to work quietly for the release of the Americans and Frenchmen held hostage. Simultaneously, the Hindawi trial is being closely watched to see whether it will yield any conclusive proof that Syria sponsors terrorism. --By Jill Smolowe. Reported by Scott MacLeod/Cairo and Adam Zagorin/Paris

With reporting by Scott MacLeod/Cairo, Adam Zagorin/Paris