No Proof of Killing, PLO Tells Council : But U.S. Envoy at U.N. Denounces Terrorists Who Seized Liner

The chief delegate of the Palestine Liberation Organization on Thursday told the U.N. Security Council there is no proof that a U.S. citizen was murdered by the hijackers of the Achille Lauro. Outside the council chamber, he called the accusation a “big lie being fabricated by the intelligence services of the United States.”

Reacting to the statements of PLO representative Farouk Kaddoumi, U.S. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters angrily told reporters:

“Have you ever heard of a guy in a wheelchair jumping overboard?”

Inside the chamber, Walters, the current council president, denounced the terrorists who seized the Italian cruise ship last Monday, although he named no group as responsible.

“Relief is the word which best describes the emotion we feel at the news that the passengers and crew of the Italian ship Achille Lauro have been released and that this latest act of terrorism and violence has ended,” the U.S. envoy said.

‘Sadness and Anger’

“Our relief is tinged with sadness and anger, however. Sadness to learn that one American, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, has been brutally murdered by the terrorists, anger that once again the contagious disease of terrorism has claimed a victim.”

Israeli Ambassador Benjamin Netanyahu unhesitatingly attacked the PLO as the author of the hijacking, and he told members of the council that the Klinghoffers were singled out from the other passengers because they were Jewish.

“Mr. Klinghoffer was killed, brutally killed, as the captain of the ship has testified. He was killed and his frail, 69-year-old body, which had been battered by many things, now received the final battering by being tossed overboard,” Netanyahu declared. “Mr. Klinghoffer is not going to go away; his body is not going to go away and his killers are not going to be able to make him go away--not from this discussion or any other discussion.”

Netanyahu said he had just received a “very detailed report” from Israeli intelligence services showing “without a shadow of a doubt” that the hijacking was the work of the Abul Abbas faction of the PLO’s Palestine Liberation Front.

“It was carried out with the full knowledge of the PLO chairman,” he said, referring to Yasser Arafat.

Original Plans

The Israeli ambassador said his intelligence reported that the hijackers originally intended to go ashore at the Israeli port of Ashdod and attempt to free a member of the faction jailed for the murder of an Israeli child and its father. “Something went wrong,” the envoy said, and the hijackers then decided to shift their plan, hijack the ship and make their demands.

Kaddoumi, speaking in the council over the objections of the United States, expressed regret at the hijacking and reminded the council that the PLO had intervened to protect American citizens in Lebanon a decade ago, receiving the written thanks of the then-Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger for its action.

He said the PLO also aided in negotiations for the release of U.S. hostages in Iran during the Administration of President Jimmy Carter.

Outside the debate, U.N. diplomats were speculating Thursday whether Arafat might attend the special 40th anniversary observance by the General Assembly over the next two weeks. A resolution inviting him to attend has been presented by nonaligned nations in the assembly and is regarded as certain of passage.