Italy Convicts 11 Men in Achille Lauro Hijacking : None Singled Out as Leon Klinghoffer Murderer; Victim’s Daughters Say Sentences Are Too Lenient

Eleven men, including the fugitive Palestinian leader Abul Abbas, were convicted and sentenced Thursday in the hijacking of the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro, but none was singled out as the murderer of American passenger Leon Klinghoffer.

The two judges and six jurors who heard the three-week trial instead assigned joint blame for the wheelchair-bound New Yorker’s killing to six defendants, three of them actual hijackers and three leaders of the Palestine Liberation Front, including Abbas, who were accused of masterminding the piracy.

The 23-year-old shipboard ringleader of the pirate-terrorists, Youssef Molki, who retracted a pretrial confession that he alone shot Klinghoffer and ordered his body and wheelchair tossed overboard, was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment.

Leniency Charged

Klinghoffer’s daughters and several Americans who were held hostage during the Oct. 7-9, 1985, hijacking criticized the hijackers’ sentences as too lenient, the Associated Press reported .

“We had every hope that the Italian judicial system would impose the maximum penalty possible,” Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer said in a joint statement issued in New York. “Sadly, we are greatly disillusioned and disappointed.”

In Washington, AP reported, State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said, “We regret that the murder of Leon Klinghoffer was not treated more severely.”

He said the U.S. government “reserved its legal right to seek extradition of the hijackers once all Italian legal proceedings, including appeals, are ended.”

Satisfaction Expressed

However, he also said that “The United States is pleased that persons responsible for the death of an American citizen and injury and damages to others have been convicted.”

Abbas and two other fugitive Palestine Liberation Front leaders, all tried in absentia, received life sentences, including two months of solitary confinement, and were ordered to pay the equivalent of $20,000 apiece to each of Klinghoffer’s two daughters. The 69-year-old murdered man’s widow, Marilyn, died of cancer in February. Court sources said they doubt that the three terrorist leaders will ever serve their sentences or pay the court-ordered fines.

Molki’s chief lieutenant aboard the Achille Lauro, Ibrahim Abdellatif, 21, received a sentence of 24 years and two months.

A third hijacker on shipboard, 24-year-old Ahmed Assadi, testified against his fellow terrorists as they shouted death threats at him in the courtroom. He received a sentence of 15 years and 2 months but did not attend Thursday’s proceedings to hear the sentence read. The three shipboard hijackers were also ordered to pay $20,000 each to the Klinghoffer daughters.

Juvenile Trial Pending

A fourth member of the actual terrorist crew that seized the ship, is Bassam Ashker, 18, who will be tried separately by a juvenile court.

All four shipboard hijackers were captured Oct. 10, 1985, and jailed in Italy after U.S. Navy F-14 fighter jets forced down an EgyptAir 737 jet carrying them and Abbas to Tunis from Egypt, where the Achille Lauro docked after an end to the hijacking was negotiated.

The plane was forced to land at Sigonella, near Catania, Sicily, a military base shared by U.S. and Italian forces. There, Italian and American troops reportedly faced one another with weapons drawn in a showdown over custody of the plane and its passengers.

Italian authorities prevailed, and the Egyptian plane was flown to Rome. Despite a U.S. warrant for Abbas, Italian officials freed him, saying they lacked evidence that he had played any role in the hijacking beyond helping to negotiate its end.

2 Lighter Sentences

Two other Palestinian defendants in the courtroom received lighter sentences because the judges and jurors decided that their roles in the hijack conspiracy were minor ones. One is Mowfak Gandura, 37, who was convicted of giving false testimony and sentenced to eight months imprisonment. Court officials said he will be released immediately because he already has served more than eight months in pretrial detention.

The other is Abbas’s cousin, Issa Abbas, 24, who got six months for using a false passport and giving a false name. The younger Abbas, picked up on false passport charges five days before the Achille Lauro sailed, already is serving a seven-year sentence for helping to smuggle the hijackers’ guns into Italy. He was sentenced after a trial last November.

Three other fugitive Palestinians who were tried in absentia received sentences ranging from six years and six months to seven years and six months in prison. They are Abdul Rahim Khaled, 49, who was on board the Achille Lauro but left the ship at Alexandria, Egypt, after giving the pirates their final instructions, the prosecution charged; Ben Kadra, 32, accused of helping to smuggle the hijackers’ weapons into Italy, and Yussef Hisham Nasser, 24, an official of the Palestine Liberation Front charged with helping the hijackers before they boarded the ship.

Four Acquittals

Four of the 15 defendants in the trial, all believed to be minor figures, were acquitted.

The relatively light sentences for most of the defendants, and the unusually forgiving reasoning of the court as it was explained by Judge Lino Monteverde are certain to arouse controversy. Speaking to reporters after the sentencing, Monteverde said the jury sympathetically considered that the young hijackers “had grown up in the tragic conditions which the Palestinian people endure.”

In explaining why the court dropped a general charge against all of the defendants of belonging to an armed terrorist band--a serious crime in terrorism-weary Italy--Monteverde said the judges and jurors decided that membership in the Palestine Liberation Front did not qualify because it “has as its goal the restoration of a homeland to the Palestinian people.”

In commandeering the Italian liner with more than 400 people aboard on Oct. 7 off the coast of Egypt, the terrorists were demanding freedom for 51 Palestinians held in Israel.

Prosecution May Appeal

One of the case’s two prosecutors, Luigi Francesco Melloni, said he probably will appeal the sentences, which he believes are too lenient, particularly for Molki. Melloni and prosecutor Luigi Carli had sought the maximum life sentence for the terrorist. A Portuguese waiter testified that on the second day of the hijacking, Oct. 8, Molki ordered him to wheel the elderly American on deck, then after gunshots, summoned him back to dump the body and wheelchair overboard.

The trial had begun on an occasionally raucous note, with one of the defendants threatening at one point to shoot the prosecutors, and it ended raucously with loud slogans shouted in Arabic by all four of the convicted men who were in the courtroom.

The moment Monteverde finished reading the sentences the defendants raised their right fists and shouted “Long live the Palestinian revolution!” “Long live (Yasser) Arafat!” “Long live Palestine!” and “Long live Italian justice!”

Civil Action Likely

Further court proceedings in the hijacking affair are likely to continue for some time to come, if only to assess civil damages. The judges and jurors ruled that the Klinghoffer daughters and the owners of the Achille Lauro have the right to sue for damages. Ilsa Klinghoffer’s Italian lawyer, Alfredo Biondi, told reporters after the sentencing that he will file suit against the Palestine Liberation Organization, which has considerable financial assets in a number of countries, and against the Palestine Liberation Front, a breakaway faction of the PLO which Abbas heads.

Abbas’s two lieutenants, who received life sentences in absentia, were his military chief of staff, Ozzuddin Badrakkam, and the Palestine Liberation Front treasurer, Ziad Omar.

Badrakkam was with Abbas in the intercepted EgyptAir jetliner.