Italians Free PLO Official Sought By U.S. in Hijacking : Appeals Ignored, Washington Says

The Reagan Administration, hoping to bring one more suspected terrorist before a Western court, pleaded with Italy on Saturday to hold Palestinian guerrilla leader Abul Abbas for a U.S. arrest, but the government of Prime Minister Bettino Craxi ignored all entreaties, officials said.

A White House spokesman said that the Administration will now seek Abbas’ extradition from Yugoslavia, where the Palestinian suspected of directing last week’s hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro fled from Rome.

“We will find him,” spokesman Dale Petroskey said. “We are determined to bring him to justice. . . . We’ll use whatever means are possible to make sure that all the terrorists involved in taking the Achille Lauro are brought to justice.”

Frustrating Efforts

Officials said that Abbas’ sudden flight from Rome came after three frustrating days in which the United States sought his arrest in Italy.

“We basically got nowhere,” Justice Department spokesman Patrick Korten said. “The Italians never initiated any proceedings against him at all.”

Abbas was not among the four terrorists who actually seized the passenger liner last Monday and murdered Leon Klinghoffer, a partially paralyzed, 69-year-old tourist from New York City. But U.S. officials said that they had collected mounting evidence that Abbas, leader of a splinter faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization called the Palestine Liberation Front, had planned and ordered the liner operation.

“We consider him to be the mastermind of the operation,” Korten said.

Blow to Counterterrorism

Abbas’ escape, with the apparent support of Italian authorities, was a blow to the Administration’s counterterrorism effort, which depends heavily on joint efforts among Western nations to deny any sanctuary to hijackers and their sponsors. It appeared to dilute President Reagan’s warning to terrorists Friday that “you can run, but you can’t hide.” And it denied the Administration an opportunity to enforce its assertion that those who order terrorists into action are as guilty as the terrorists themselves.

One official said that President Reagan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz were “obviously disappointed” by the failure of Italy, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally of the United States, to cooperate with their attempt to arrest Abbas.

In a statement late Saturday, the State Department said it was “deeply disappointed at Italy’s decision to release Abbas” adding that “Evidence at hand strongly suggests that Abbas was criminally implicated in the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, indeed, that he planned and controlled the operation.”

A Justice Department official told United Press International, “We believe he (Abbas) mastermined it and controlled the operation by radio from a nearby location. He planned it, the whole business.”

Yugoslavia, an independent Communist nation, has cordial relations with the United States--but also a history of strong support for the PLO and a record of sheltering suspected terrorists. American officials have accused the Yugoslavs of knowingly allowing the notorious Venezuelan-born terrorist known as “Carlos” to pass through Belgrade in 1976 despite numerous international warrants for his arrest.

U.S. officials suspected as early as Thursday that Italy intended to allow Abbas and an unidentified aide to leave that country without facing any charges, and they informally told Italian authorities then that the Administration wanted them held longer.

Among reasons for their suspicions, officials said, was knowledge that Egypt had told Italy that it would not let the Achille Lauro sail from Port Said, where it is still berthed on orders of Egyptian authorities, until the EgyptAir plane intercepted by the Americans was back in Egypt and Abbas and his companion were allowed to leave Italy.

Important Ties to PLO

But they said that Craxi’s government, which has important relations with the Arab world--and which praised PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat for his role in ending the hijacking--showed no enthusiasm for holding Abbas, who is a member of the PLO’s Executive Council, roughly tantamount to Arafat’s Cabinet.

Craxi, who had already announced Italy’s plans to try the four hijackers for “willful homicide, kidnaping and hijacking” for their seizure of the Italian-registered Achille Lauro, may have feared a wave of terrorist reprisals and Arab diplomatic displeasure if he handed a high-ranking PLO official such as Abbas over to the United States, a State Department official speculated.

On Friday night, Justice Department lawyers rushed before U.S. District Court Judge Charles Richey in Washington to obtain an arrest warrant for Abbas on charges of hostage-taking, piracy and conspiracy.

The warrant was issued under a 1984 law which extends U.S. jurisdiction to terrorist hostage-taking acts against Americans abroad. The law, however, makes no reference to murder.

‘Provisional Arrest’ Sought

The State Department then cabled the U.S. Embassy in Rome with an official request to the government of Italy for the “provisional arrest” of Abbas, pending a formal petition for extradition. The Embassy delivered the request to the Italian Foreign Ministry on Saturday morning, officials said.

But the strategy failed to change the Italians’ mind, and Abbas was allowed to fly to Belgrade aboard a Yugoslav airline passenger flight Saturday evening, which was mysteriously delayed for nearly two hours so that Abbas might board.

An Italian official was quoted Saturday as suggesting that the absence of a complete extradition request made it impossible for the Craxi government to continue holding Abbas, but Justice Department spokesman Korten dismissed that excuse.

“We have an extradition treaty with Italy, and under its provisions the formal extradition request doesn’t have to happen right away,” he said. “As far as we’re concerned, the Italians had the necessary information (to arrest Abbas) Friday night, Washington time.”

Korten said that the Justice Department did not seek an arrest warrant against a Palestinian who accompanied Abbas, reportedly an aide to the Palestine Liberation Front chief, “because we didn’t have enough evidence to charge him.”

Initial Plans Went Awry

Senior State Department officials said that intelligence information collected since the hijacking suggests that Abbas ordered the four terrorists to sail aboard the Achille Lauro with the aim of landing in Israel, but they hijacked the ship when their initial plans went awry.

Korten said even if that scenario proves to be true, “He would still have culpability under these (U.S.) laws.”

Meanwhile, the Administration continued to pursue its case against the four hijackers whom Italy is still holding. The Justice Department obtained warrants for their arrest on Saturday and asked the Craxi government to hold them pending a U.S. extradition request.

FBI Director William Webster said that “two crack teams” of his agents have been sent to Italy to monitor the prosecution of the hijackers there and that one of the teams plans to go on to Egypt to examine evidence aboard the Achille Lauro.

He said that it is still unclear whether the Administration plans to try the hijackers in the United States if Italy goes ahead with its trial.

Arab Retaliation Feared

Webster, who spoke to reporters outside a meeting of the U.S. Business Council in Hot Springs, Va., also disclosed that the FBI is stepping up its surveillance of pro-Palestinian groups in this country to guard against retaliation for the seizure of the Egyptian airliner carrying the hijackers.

“There are sympathetic organizations over here that I think will continue to be followed very closely in order to minimize the risk of retaliation,” Webster said.

“They’ve already threatened various kinds of retaliation. We won’t take rhetoric for action . . . and I’m not really not looking for that sort of thing. But to not prepare for it would be equally wrong,” he said.

President Reagan, spending the weekend at Camp David, Md., telephoned his congratulations to the crew of the aircraft carrier Saratoga, which ironically is making a port call in Yugoslavia where Abbas landed late Saturday. The Saratoga’s jet fighters forced the hijackers to land in Italy.

“I want to let you know how proud I am to be your commander in chief,” the White House quoted Reagan as telling Rear Adm. David Jeremiah, commander of the Saratoga battle group.

The President also telephoned Marilyn Klinghoffer, the widow of the man killed during the hijacking, and expressed his sorrow for her husband’s death, a spokesman said.