Lebanon Starts Legal Action on TWA Hijackers

A public prosecutor began judicial proceedings today against the fugitive hijackers of a TWA jetliner who killed a U.S. Navy diver during a 17-day hostage ordeal at the Beirut airport.

If tried and found guilty, the hijackers could be sentenced to death, said Maurice Khawam, the Mount Lebanon public prosecutor in charge of the airport.

Legal sources said the investigation was political in nature. “No one seriously believes the air pirates will be actually arrested or brought to trial,” one source said.

In letters to the judicial police and authorities in charge of security at Beirut International Airport, Khawam named one of the hijackers and ordered an investigation into the identity and role of his comrades.

Information Requested

“Investigate and advise on the role of Ali Atweh and his friends in the hijack of the TWA jetliner to Beirut,” Khawam said in a cable to police and security departments.

Atweh, a Shia Muslim, was arrested by Greek police shortly after the June 14 hijacking of TWA Flight 847. He was turned over by Greece to the air pirates in exchange for the freedom of some of the women and children aboard the commandeered aircraft.

Khawam said Greece had requested that charges of air piracy be brought against Atweh and his comrades. The TWA Boeing 727 was seized during a flight from Athens to Rome.

Khawam said the Greek request named Atweh and three others “but we think some of the names are false.”

Identity Denied

A senior official of Justice Minister Nabih Berri’s Shia Amal militia said earlier this month that there was no objection to the hijackers being brought to justice but that they had not been identified and could not be found.

A report by state-run Beirut radio last week named Ali Younis and Ahmed Ghorbieh together with Atweh as the principal hijackers, but the station later dropped its report.

Artillery and gun battles engulfed Beirut and the hills east of the capital early today, killing four people after Druze chief Walid Jumblatt vowed to “fight unto death” to oust President Amin Gemayel, a Christian.

Syrian Observers Arrive

Jumblatt’s fighting words and the battles came in spite of the arrival in Beirut Sunday of Syrian military observers to oversee the disarmament of Muslim militias in West Beirut and Beirut airport.

Prime Minister Rashid Karami said a new plan to end anarchy in West Beirut and its airport will be implemented at 6 a.m. Tuesday when a newly formed elite army force takes “positions assigned to it in the capital.”

The force consists of 300 Lebanese army soldiers who will oversee the closing of militia offices in the Muslim sector and end their rule over the Beirut airport, government sources said.