U.S. Insists That 4 Terrorists Be Prosecuted : White House Is ‘Saddened and Outraged at Brutal Killing of American’

The Reagan Administration demanded Wednesday that the Palestinian terrorists who seized the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and killed 69-year-old American tourist Leon Klinghoffer be prosecuted to the limit of the law. It vowed “to do everything possible to see that those responsible are brought to justice.”

“While we welcome the release of the passengers and crew of the Achille Lauro, we are saddened and outraged at this brutal killing of an innocent American,” presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said Wednesday night, after confirmation of Klinghoffer’s death.

And nine hours after the four Palestinian terrorists surrendered control of the vessel, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Nicholas A. Veliotes, who boarded the ship on orders of President Reagan, reported that Klinghoffer, a partially paralyzed New Yorker, was the only fatality among the more than 500 hostages the terrorists had threatened to kill.

As soon as Veliotes’ report was received here, the Administration stepped up its pressure for prosecution of the Palestinian extremists.

‘Particularly Distressed’

“We are particularly distressed,” Speakes said, “that there has been no announcement yet that those responsible will be turned over to the appropriate authority for prosecution and punishment.”

Although other Administration sources said the price for the hostages’ release had been free passage out of Egypt for the Palestinian gunmen, Speakes said he knew of no such arrangement.

And at the State Department, Richard W. Murphy, assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs, said Veliotes had told Egyptian officials that the United States was opposed to safe passage.

“We made it clear,” Murphy said, “that we expected arrest, punishment and prosecution for the crime of hijacking. . . . We urged in the strongest terms that if there had been the crime of murder committed that the murderers be detained in Egypt and prosecuted for their crime.”

Murphy told reporters Wednesday night that he believes the Egyptian government’s deal with the terrorists had taken place “on the understanding that no one had been injured or killed.”

Throughout the day, the government’s relief at the release of more than 500 people held hostage aboard the luxury liner for two days was tempered by widespread uncertainty over the information reaching Washington in the hours immediately after the gunmen were taken ashore at Port Said.

Egyptian Actions Unclear

In the wake of the Administration’s demand that the terrorists be prosecuted, Speakes acknowledged that U.S. officials did not know what had happened to the terrorists after they were taken from the ship, but he said Wednesday night that they were believed to still be in Egyptian custody.

Officials refused to directly criticize the Egyptians for the arrangement that freed the ship and the hostages, but there was an increasingly strong implied rebuke, as the Administration reiterated its tough line against negotiation with terrorists.

After stressing several times during the day that the deal ending the crisis had been fashioned by the Egyptians, Speakes said pointedly Wednesday night: “From the outset, the United States government made clear to the government of Egypt and the government of Italy our opposition to negotiation with the terrorists and our expectation that the terrorists would be apprehended, prosecuted and punished.”

Although White House and State Department spokesmen refused to discuss any of the conditions that led to the vessel’s and hostages’ release, State Department sources said that the United States was aware all along that the Egyptian government was offering safe passage to the hijackers.

And, according to these officials, who declined to be identified, the United States communicated with the Palestine Liberation Organization through the governments of both Italy and Egypt.

No Talks With Terrorists

Reiterating the frequently stated policy that the United States will neither negotiate with terrorists nor encourage other governments to do so, Administration spokesmen went out of their way to emphasize that the release had been negotiated by Egypt.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman called the end of the hijacking “an all-Egyptian show,” and Speakes told reporters at the White House: “We do not know the details of the arrangements that the government of Egypt made to bring about this conclusion. The decision on how to resolve the crisis was one by the Egyptian government.”

Officials denied that their reiteration of the United States’ hard public line against negotiations with terrorists was intended as a criticism of the Egyptian government.

Although the United States also has a firm policy against direct dealings with the PLO, State Department officials said that no diplomatic problem would have arisen over direct contacts under such emergency circumstances. They pointed out, however, that talks were carried out in this case by intermediaries.

Reagan Advised

On Wednesday, President Reagan was advised that the Palestinians had surrendered the ship just as he was leaving the White House to make a speech on behalf of Republican gubernatorial candidate Wyatt Durette in suburban Virginia.

In his speech, Reagan made no reference to the fact that the crisis was coming to an end, because he was said to remain uncertain of the information reaching Washington. The first report that Klinghoffer was dead came from Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who had been in radio contact with the vessel’s captain.

Although the Administration had been in contact with more than half a dozen governments, Washington took an unusually cautious stance throughout the day, refusing to accept information from Egypt as definitive.

“Our information comes to us from Egyptian authorities in many important areas,” Redman said. But, he added, “that information is coming to Egyptian authorities from the ship’s captain, and as a consequence, we are not in a position to independently confirm the nature of those reports.”

One-Way Conversations

Murphy said that conversations with the terrorists during the two days they held the ship were mostly one-way as the gunmen repeatedly issued their demands that 50 Palestinian prisoners in Israel be freed in exchange for the lives of the hostages.

The demands and the threats to murder the hostages continued until the early hours of Wednesday morning, he said, but finally the terrorists “were sweated out of their conditions.”