4 Ship Hijackers Vanish; U.S., Israel Angry at Egypt : PLO Has Them, Says Mubarak

The four Palestinian hijackers of an Italian cruise ship who killed an elderly, disabled Jewish-American tourist vanished today, with Egypt and the Palestine Liberation Organization denying knowledge of their whereabouts.

The United States and Israel bristled.

An irate Reagan Administration official said that the four hijackers of the Achille Lauro were taken to Al Maza Airport outside Cairo and that Egyptian authorities were preparing to fly them to an unknown destination.

“We’re angry at the Egyptians and we want that flight stopped,” said the official, who spoke in Washington on condition he not be identified. He did not give the source of his information.

President Reagan said the United States is doing everything it can to find the killers, and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Israel would not “stand idly by.”

‘Possibly Went to Tunis’

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the Palestinian hijackers, who freed their hostages and surrendered Wednesday off the coast near Port Said, were turned over to the PLO five hours before it was learned that they had killed Leon Klinghoffer, 69, of New York.

“Those who took charge of the hijackers are from the PLO,” Mubarak said. “They have left Egypt already. I don’t know where they went, but they possibly went to Tunis.”

But PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat said from his headquarters in Tunis that he did not have custody of the men, and a PLO spokesman said later that they did not know the whereabouts of the hijackers.

While on a trip to Chicago, Reagan said that he was “mad” and that the hijackers should be tried “for murder, a very brutal murder. We are doing everything we can to see they are brought to justice.”

He also called on nations to deny entry to the hijackers, identified by Egypt as Alaa Abdullah Kheshen, 19; Majid Youssef Malaki, 23; Mahmoud Ali Abdullah, 23, and Abdel Latif Ibrahim Fatayer, 20.

Held Liner for 2 Days

The four surrendered to Egyptian authorities after holding 511 hostages aboard the liner for two days in the eastern Mediterranean. The terrorists had threatened to kill the passengers--beginning with 16 Americans--unless Israel freed 50 Palestinian prisoners. Israel did not free the prisoners.

Mubarak said Egypt agreed to take charge of the hijackers and to grant them safe passage from Egypt in exchange for the safe release of the passengers and crew.

He said the pirates were released before Egypt learned that Klinghoffer, a stroke victim confined to a wheelchair, had been killed by the hijackers.

Mubarak’s statement came after Italy called for the hijackers’ extradition and after the White House demanded they be punished severely.

At one point Reagan said that if Arafat has the terrorists, he “should turn them over to a sovereign state (Italy or the United States) that has jurisdiction and could prosecute them as the murderers that they are.”

Reagan Amends Remarks

That appeal to the PLO was a quick backstep from a statement less than an hour earlier here that it would be “all right” if the PLO punished the hijackers.

“I shouldn’t have made a statement of that kind. . . . I think that I was thinking, kind of mad as I am, vengeance instead of justice,” Reagan told reporters as he amended his earlier remarks.

The blue-and-white liner steamed into Port Said early today with the former hostages aboard, nine hours after the hijackers surrendered and were taken off.

In Port Said, some passengers left the ship. Klinghoffer’s wife, Marilyn, 58, was the first.

She was escorted by two friends, Neil and June Kantor, and returned to the ship in half an hour after making some telephone calls.