West Germany Verdict Against Damascus

By Jennifer B. Hull.

Speaking before the packed and heavily guarded West Berlin courtroom, Presiding Judge Hans-Joachim Heinze slowly delivered the verdict. As expected, he pronounced Palestinians Ahmed Hasi, 35, and Farouk Salameh, 39, guilty of the March bombing of the German-Arab Friendship Society offices in West Berlin that injured nine persons. The judge sentenced Hasi to 14 years in prison and Salameh to 13 years. But he did not stop there. The three-member panel that heard the case, declared Heinze, ruled that Hasi had obtained the explosives from the Syrian embassy in East Berlin. Said the judge: "The court is satisfied that the Syrian link is proven."

The verdict prompted a flurry of diplomatic moves by the government of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Bonn immediately expelled five Syrian diplomats, two of whom were military attaches, halted development aid as well as $73 million in low-interest loans to Damascus, and announced that it will not replace its Ambassador to Syria, whose tour of duty ended Nov. 16. The West German government also stopped honoring a type of Syrian passport that it suspects has been used by terrorists. The moves amounted to a formal downgrading of diplomatic ties between the two countries. Said West German Spokesman Friedhelm Ost: "The Syrian government must accept that the behavior of its agencies will be attributed to it."

Syria responded with reprisals of its own. In Damascus the government of President Hafez Assad ordered the expulsion of three West German diplomats and said that it would withdraw its ambassador from Bonn. Meanwhile, Fayssal Sammak, Syria's Ambassador to East Germany, angrily denied that his country had been involved in the Friendship Society bombing.

West Germany's moves against Syria last week were somewhat less severe than measures taken by Britain last October after a London court convicted Hasi's brother Nezar Hindawi of trying to blow up an El Al airliner, allegedly with Syrian help. The British promptly broke off diplomatic relations with the Damascus regime. Bonn's moves, by contrast, left the Kohl government free to continue diplomatic and trade relations. The decision not to reappoint a West German Ambassador to Damascus, for instance, can easily be reversed.

West Berlin police authorities issued an international arrest warrant for a Syrian who is believed to have masterminded the Friendship Society bombing. In pre-trial testimony, Hasi identified the man who gave him the bomb as Abu Ahmed. Abu Ahmed appears to be Lieut. Colonel Haitam Said, whose name turned up in British intelligence investigations of the Hindawi case and who thus provides a possible link between the London and West Berlin terrorist incidents.

Bonn's actions were applauded in Washington and other West European capitals. A State Department spokesman said that the U.S. will now consult with its allies on possible "additional steps to make clear that Syria's support for international terrorism is unacceptable." In West Berlin, which has technically been under military occupation by the U.S., Britain and France since World War II, the allies barred Syrians working in East Berlin from entering the western half of the city.

The West Berlin verdict and the subsequent sanctions may not be the end of international embarrassment for Damascus. A Turkish court has reportedly issued an arrest warrant for a Syrian diplomat accused of ordering the murder of a Jordanian diplomat in 1985. In addition, Austrian and Italian authorities investigating last December's airport massacres in Vienna and Rome are seeking indications of Syrian involvement.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Cairo and Clive Freeman/Bonn