Reagan Calls Capture Warning to Terrorists : Italy Will Try 4 Palestinians for Hijacking

The Palestinian hijackers of the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro remained in Italian police custody Friday, and the Italian government said that they will be tried here despite an American request to extradite them to the United States.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Bettino Craxi said late Friday that the four hijackers have been moved from the joint U.S.-Italian military base where their getaway plane was forced to land early Friday morning when it was intercepted by U.S. military aircraft.

The hijackers have been moved to “a safe place,” the official spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the EgyptAir 737 that had carried the hijackers out of Egypt was flown late Friday from the base at Sigonella, Sicily, where it landed, to Rome’s Ciampino military airfield. Several Italian military planes accompanied the Egyptian jet.

2 PLO Officials Aboard

Aboard the Egyptian aircraft were two officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who had been accompanying the hijackers, as well as five Egyptian diplomats, more than a dozen Egyptian security officials and the plane’s crew. The Egyptian ambassador to Italy met the plane and took all aboard to the Egyptian Embassy here for the night.

Italian officials indicated that the government had finished questioning everyone aboard the flight and that they would all be allowed to return to Egypt with the plane.

Craxi, in announcing the Italian decision to hold the four men who had seized the cruise ship and killed an elderly American passenger, said President Reagan agreed during a telephone conversation Friday that “they should remain here for trial,” even though “the United States is still planning to seek extradition.”

Arrest Warrants Issued

Craxi said they probably will be tried in one of three Italian cities--Genoa, where the four pirates apparently boarded the cruise liner; Rome, where the Argentine passport that one of them used to board the cruise ship was stolen, or Catania, near the Sicilian base where the Egyptian 737 was forced down.

Genoa magistrates already have issued arrest warrants charging the four with “willful homicide, kidnaping and hijacking.”

Craxi told a crowded press conference in Rome that in a telephone conversation with Reagan after the dramatic U.S. air interception of the sanctuary-bound hijackers, the U.S. President said “he wanted to take to the United States those responsible for killing an American citizen and put them on trial.”

But after the Italian leader explained that “the crimes were committed in international waters on an Italian ship, (thus on) Italian territory,” Reagan acknowledged that “the four hijackers could not be taken away from Italian justice.”

The two PLO officials on the plane were “invited to give as much testimony as possible,” Craxi said and were never under arrest. He identified one as Abu Abbas (also known as Abul Abbas), leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, a radical splinter group to which the hijackers are thought to belong. Abu Abbas is also a member of the PLO executive committee and a close associate of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Craxi said he did not know the name of the second PLO official, but Palestinian leaders in Morocco said he was Abbas’s top assistant.

U.S. Interest in Abbas

In Washington, a law enforcement source described Abbas as being of “substantial interest” to U.S. intelligence officials. “It’s not been determined that he was just a mediator,” he said.

A State Department official agreed and said, “There will be substantial disappointment here if he is allowed to go back to Egypt.”

Senior State Department officials said there was some evidence to support Israel’s charge that Abbas ordered the four terrorists to sail aboard the Achille Lauro with the aim of landing in Israel and that they hijacked the ship only when their initial plans went somehow awry.

They said there was no clear evidence of a direct link to Arafat himself but added that was a subject on which they would like to question Abbas.

Abu Abbas was one of the two PLO officials who boarded the Achille Lauro off the Egyptian coast Wednesday night and, he said, persuaded the gunmen to surrender.

Craxi explained that, under Italian law, the plane and passengers not implicated in the piracy of the Achille Lauro would have to remain in Italy until investigating magistrates establish with legal certainty the identities of the four accused men, who he said already have confessed that they seized the ship. Photographs of the four have been sent to Egypt to aid in the identification, he said.

High-Security Prison

He added that the preliminary judicial investigation necessary before the four Palestinians are charged would be completed in “a few hours.” Then, he said, they would be moved to a high-security prison. That is apparently what happened late Friday.

The Egyptian plane, escorted by two Italian fighters, was flown Friday night from the Sicilian base to Rome’s Ciampino military airport.

Egypt, similarly, has detained the Achille Lauro in Port Said for investigation, possibly in a tit-for-tat gesture pending the return of its airliner.

The shipping company that owns the liner announced here Friday that the current cruise is being canceled and that the passengers remaining on board will be flown back to Italy, some, perhaps, to give testimony in the legal proceedings against the hijackers.

Seventeen American passengers left the ship and caught a U.S. military transport for the United States late Friday. About 500 who departed at Alexandria, before the hijacking, for a bus tour of the pyramids, have been waiting in Israel to resume the cruise. The shipping company will pay their way back to Italy.

Craxi Was in Dark

In reviewing the rapid pace of developments during the stunning American interception of the Egyptian plane, Craxi said that he knew nothing of the U.S. plan until 30 minutes before the Navy F-14s escorted the Boeing 737 to Sicily.

“All I knew then is that the request to land came first in the voice of the President of the United States,” Craxi said, recounting the first of two telephone calls from Reagan.

The crew and passengers, including the hijackers, apparently were held aboard the sealed plane on a runway at the Sigonella base until Reagan and Craxi agreed in a second phone conversation several hours later that Italy would get first crack at prosecution. Then the hijackers were taken off the plane by Italian police while American military officers stood by.

During his meeting with reporters at Chigi Palace, the ornate 17th-Century office building of Italian prime ministers, Craxi defended his warm relations with Arafat and his call to the PLO for help in finding a peaceful solution to the ship hijacking.

He has encountered criticism on both counts from some of his partners in the five-party coalition that has kept him in power for more than two years.

Why the Criticism?

“Why, in this dramatic situation, where we were trying to save the lives of hundreds of people, is there this criticism and polemic of our relation with Arafat?” he asked, pointing out that other U.S. allies also had warm relations with the PLO.

“The PLO behaved (during the crisis) with a spirit of collaboration and friendship,” he said, adding that he would cheerfully offer Arafat public thanks again, as he did Wednesday when the hijacking ended.

Before the EgyptAir plane left the Sigonella air base, security restrictions had been exceptionally tight. Journalists were repeatedly warned away from the base perimeter under threat of arrest by Italian police.