Yugoslavia Won’t Hold PLO Official, FBI Director Says : Italian Decision to Free Terrorist Triggers Protest

FBI Director William H. Webster said Sunday that Yugoslavia has turned down a U.S. request to detain Palestinian leader Abul Abbas, accused by the United States of masterminding the operation that ended in the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and the murder of an American passenger.

At the same time, the Reagan Administration described as “incomprehensible” Italy’s decision to let Abbas flee from Rome to Belgrade.

And, it was learned from a top official who asked not to be identified, Secretary of State George P. Shultz plans to underscore that indignation during a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday with Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti.

Expression of Outrage

Risking new strains with an important North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, the White House issued a sharply worded expression of outrage over the Italian action, which took place after a federal judge issued a warrant for Abbas’ arrest on piracy and other charges. The Administration also had notified Italian authorities that it intended to seek his extradition.

In a television interview, Webster likened Abbas to “a moving horse” and suggested that he would probably elude punishment for now because of Yugoslavia’s apparent decision not to honor the U.S. request.

“My information is that he is in Yugoslavia, that the Yugoslav authorities have declined to detain Abbas, under the request we made through Interpol (the international police organization), so that I would anticipate that he will probably move along,” Webster said on the CBS news program “Face the Nation.”

Traveling on Iraqi Passport

Saying that information on Abbas’ whereabouts changes by the hour, Webster said his intelligence shows Abbas to be traveling on an Iraqi diplomatic passport and probably staying in offices of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Belgrade. PLO sources there said he will remain in the city two or three days.

In what was seen more as an expression of hope than of diplomatic reality, the White House and State Department said Sunday that the Yugoslav government has not formally responded to the American request for Abbas’ detention and that they have therefore not yet foreclosed that option.

However, Yugoslavia’s state-run Tanjug news agency went out of its way Sunday to praise Abbas.

“As a PLO representative,” it said, “ . . . Abul Abbas had several hours of negotiations with the hijackers. . . . The negotiations were successful, and a greater tragedy was thus prevented.”

In turn, Abbas, in an interview with the Kuwaiti news agency, thanked the Yugoslav government for receiving him in Belgrade and not giving in to U.S. pressure to extradite him. He also thanked the Italian government for freeing him and showing “its courageous attitude and support to the cause of the Palestinian people.”

The White House acknowledged that Italy’s position is that the United States did not provide enough evidence to support its request for his “provisional arrest,” pending the filing of a formal extradition petition. But the White House also made clear that it believes that explanation is weak.

‘Incomprehensible’ Decision

“The U.S. government finds it incomprehensible that Italian authorities permitted Abul Abbas to leave Italy despite a U.S. government request to the Italian government for his arrest and detention,” said a statement issued before dawn Sunday by presidential spokesman Larry Speakes. “. . . Abbas, also known as Abu Khaled, is one of the most notorious Palestinian terrorists and has been involved in savage attacks on civilians. . . . The U.S. government is astonished at this breach of any reasonable standard of due process and is deeply disappointed.”

Abbas heads a splinter faction of the PLO known as the Palestine Liberation Front. The four Palestinian terrorists who took over the cruise ship last week as it sailed off Egypt identified themselves as members of that front. Abbas mediated their surrender to Egyptian authorities.

The Administration charges that Abbas actually planned and controlled the operation, which accumulating evidence shows was originally aimed at infiltrating the Palestinians into Israel to carry out terrorist activities after the Achille Lauro docked there.

Abbas admitted as much himself Sunday. Interviewed in Belgrade by a correspondent of Egypt’s Middle East News Agency, Abbas said:

“The aim of the four Palestinians was not to hijack the Italian ship or threaten the lives of the passengers. Their destination was the Israeli port of Ashdod to launch a suicide mission in occupied territory. But coincidence changed the course of events when they were discovered aboard the ship after it had left Alexandria, which forced them to seize it.”

Abbas and a companion, who was identified in Belgrade as a Palestinian named Abu Ezz, accompanied the Palestinian hijackers on the EgyptAir jet that U.S. warplanes intercepted and forced it to land in Sicily early Friday. Italian authorities have jailed the four hijackers and charged them with several crimes, including piracy and the murder of an American passenger on the cruise ship, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer of New York City.

Italian authorities allowed Abbas and Ezz to leave Italy on Saturday evening on a Yugoslav airliner that was held for nearly two hours so that the two men might board.

Interviewed Sunday on the NBC news program “Meet the Press,” Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III said the Administration has supplied Italian authorities with “compelling evidence” of Abbas’ complicity in the terrorist operation that ended with the ship hijacking. Baker suggested that political considerations may have led Italian authorities to ignore the U.S. legal arguments. However, he declined to elaborate.

Ties May be Soured

And Baker acknowledged that the controversy could, at least temporarily, sour Italian-American relations. “I think perhaps the strains could be significant . . . but permanent, no,” he said.

Although they expressed indignation over Italy’s handling of Abbas, Baker and other U.S. officials sought to play down earlier criticism of Egypt’s decision to let the hijackers leave that country. Similarly, Osama Baz, the chief political adviser to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, minimized the long-term impact of any disagreement with the United States over the diversion of the Egyptian aircraft.

“I wouldn’t call it a strain between the two countries or government, because we are friends and our friendship runs deeper than that,” Baz said on the CBS program.