British Airways Office in Rome Bombed; 14 Hurt

A 16-year-old Palestinian youth hurled a bag packed with explosives into a British Airways office Wednesday and fled before it went off, wounding 14 people, two seriously.

Police said the youth was caught near the Via Veneto. Police Chief Marcello Monarca said the suspect, identified as Aatab Hassan abu Ahmed, confessed and was charged with the bombing. He said the youth had an accomplice who is still at large.

Monarca said the suspect told investigators he was born 16 years ago in Beirut’s Chatilla refugee camp and belonged to the Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims.

The organization claimed responsibility for a grenade attack Sept. 16 at the Cafe de Paris on the fashionable Via Veneto, not far from the site of Wednesday’s bombing. The cafe was crowded with tourists, and 39 people were wounded.

Witnesses said that in Wednesday’s attack, the youth tossed the bag through the door of the office and ran. He was caught by Italian police guarding the nearby U.S. Embassy.

Burns, Crushed Leg

Two Italian employees of the airline were seriously injured. Raffaella Leopardo, 33, was listed in grave condition at St. Eugenio Hospital with a crushed right leg and burns over her entire body.

British Airways is on the ground floor of a seven-story building on Via Leonida Bissolati. The explosion blew out all five windows and made a hole a yard wide and 20 inches deep in the floor of the office, which also was the target of a terrorist bomb in 1979.

The blast also shattered glass at the neighboring Philippine Airlines office.

Hospital officials said all those injured were Italians, except for a 22-year-old Greek woman.

Rome’s mayor, Nicola Signorello, said the bombings created “an intolerable emergency situation” and Romans “would not accept living under the nightmare of extremist violence.”

The Assn. of Foreign Airline Companies sent a telegram to Italy’s Interior Ministry demanding stronger security to ensure the safety of airline employees and the public.

Employees of Alitalia, the Italian national carrier, and foreign airlines called a half-day strike for today to demonstrate their concern.