Statement of Mrs. Klinghoffer, Now Dead, Read in Court : Victim’s Wife Told of Hijacker’s Tears

One of the Achille Lauro hijackers cried and kissed American hostage Marilyn Klinghoffer after her wheelchair-bound husband was shot to death, according to a sworn statement read in court today.

Mrs. Klinghoffer, who died of cancer this spring, gave the statement to Italian authorities Oct. 12, three days after the hijacking ended.

Her statement was read today in Italian by Judge Lino Monteverde, who is conducting the trial of 15 people charged in connection with hijacking the Italian cruise liner off Port Said, Egypt. During the hijacking, Klinghoffer was slain and his body was dumped overboard.

His wife said in the statement that 10 Americans and five Britons among the passengers and crew were separated from the other hostages and taken to an upper deck.

Her 69-year-old husband remained on a lower level of the ship because he was confined to a wheelchair, her statement said.

“About 3:15 (or) 3:30 (p.m.), I heard two shots,” she said in the statement. “Right after, I heard a noise of something going into the water . . . a splash.”

She said the hostages asked about the noise, but “none of us got a precise answer.” At one point, she asked one of the gunmen about her husband’s fate.

“He said he was well. Then he gave me two kisses, he was crying,” she said in the statement.

One of the men accused in the hijacking, Ahmed Assadi, testified last week that he was upset when another hijacker told him he had shot Klinghoffer. Assadi testified that when Mrs. Klinghoffer asked him about her husband, he didn’t know what to say and embraced her.