Terrorism Wanted for Murder and Air Piracy

By Wayne Svoboda

The world watched appalled for 17 days in June 1985 as the fate of passengers aboard hijacked TWA Flight 847 was decided. Two Muslim terrorists commandeered the aircraft between Athens and Rome and forced it to land in Beirut. There they singled out Robert Stethem, a 23-year-old Navy diver, tied his hands, beat him brutally and then shot him to death. Over the next two weeks the masked hijackers, reinforced by fellow terrorists, threatened to blow up the aircraft, while they gradually released all but 39 of the original 153 passengers. The remaining captives were set free after Syrian President Hafez Assad intervened.

Last week at Frankfurt airport, West German customs agents seized a man who had just arrived on a flight from Beirut. The arrest took place after officials noticed three suspicious-looking bottles in a suitcase the man had opened for inspection. Upon closer scrutiny, the agents recognized the liquid in the bottles as methylnitrate, an explosive similar to nitroglycerine. The man, who called himself "Youssef Rida," was immediately taken into custody and charged with planning a terrorist bombing.

The real news was still to come. A check of fingerprints supplied by the U.S. stunned West German officials. Declared West German Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann: "The man we captured is a big fish." Indeed he was: he was none other than Mohammed Ali Hamadei, 22, a Lebanese wanted in the U.S. for murder and air piracy in the TWA hijacking. Hamadei was allegedly one of the original two hijackers; his hooded face appeared all over the world as he and his fellow terrorists made demands from the hijacked plane. In Washington, Justice Department officials are asking that Hamadei be flown to the U.S. to stand trial. Under the amended Federal Aviation Act, U.S. authorities are empowered to prosecute cases of hijacking and murder aboard U.S. aircraft anywhere in the world.

But the U.S. demand for Hamadei could hit a legal snag. Under terms of a 1978 U.S.-West German extradition treaty, Bonn will not extradite suspects who would face the death penalty in an American court for the crime involved. Hamadei could be executed if he is convicted in the U.S. At week's end American and West German diplomats in Bonn were discussing other possible means of bringing Hamadei to the U.S. besides formal extradition. Said a State Department official: "It's just a question of working out procedures." A Justice Department spokesman refused to say whether the U.S. would waive the death penalty if Hamadei is found guilty.

Hamadei was the second suspected terrorist to be arrested in Europe last week. In Italy, police at Milan airport seized another Lebanese man, Bachir Khodr, 26, who arrived from Beirut. Inspection of picture frames and chocolate Easter eggs in Khodr's luggage found them to be filled with 24 lbs. of plastic explosives. A portable radio that he carried contained 36 detonators. Authorities in Italy believe Khodr may be a member of a pro-Iranian terrorist group called Hizballah and could possibly have ties to Hamadei. Italian Interior Minister Oscar Scalfaro asserted that the "arrest in Frankfurt is linked with that of the Lebanese taken in Milan," but offered no details. Connected or coincidental, last week's arrests demonstrated that terrorists are certainly not invincible.

With reporting by John Kohan/Bonn