Pro-Iranian Group Behind Hijacking, PLO Aide Says

A Lebanese gunman who seized an Air Afrique airliner and killed a French passenger was part of a well-planned operation to free pro-Iranian extremists jailed in France and West Germany, the man who negotiated with him said Saturday.

“Let’s face it,” Nabil Ramlawi, the Palestine Liberation Organization representative in Geneva told the Reuters news agency in an interview. “Nobody can do this on his own.”

The man named no group during 90 minutes of negotiations, except to say its members were “resisting and acting against cancerous germs.” Ramlawi felt this was a reference to Western countries involved in the Middle East.

But the suspect, identified as Hussein Ali Mohammad Hariri, 21, told interrogators that he was alone and did not act on behalf of any organization, Josef Hermann, a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s office said.

According to a report from Lebanon, relatives of Hariri said he was a member of Hezbollah (Party of God) which is believed to be holding hostages in Lebanon.

Shortly after the plane was forced to land at Geneva airport, the gunman put a blanket over the head of a 28-year-old Frenchman, Xavier Guillaume Beaulieu, and shot him dead with an semi-automatic pistol.

Ramlawi quoted the hijacker as saying he killed Beaulieu “because they (the passengers) don’t understand anything except this sort of language. I did it because I wanted to convince all the others that I am serious.” Meanwhile, Swiss Foreign Minister Pierre Aubert who also holds the ceremonial post of president, said that Hariri would be tried in Switzerland on murder charges despite the possibility of retaliation against Swiss citizens.

Swiss Courts to Decide

“It’s up to Swiss courts to judge this crime,” he said in an interview with Swiss Radio. “One cannot exclude the possibility of consequences for the life of Swiss in Lebanon or Iran, specifically in Tehran.”

If convicted, Hariri faces life imprisonment. He was being held in the maximum security section of Geneva’s Champ Dollon jail.

In Beirut, an unidentified male caller to a radio station Saturday said the previously unknown “Green Cells” organization would attack Swiss interests if Switzerland handed over the hijacker for trial in France, which broke diplomatic relations with Iran on July 17.

At the same time, dozens of Swiss nationals in Beirut, including 28 who work with the International Red Cross, took extra security precautions in the Muslim part of the capital fearing reprisals.

On a Flight to Paris

The gunman seized the Air Afrique DC-10 with 148 passengers and crew of 15 on board during a flight from Rome to Paris on Friday. He was overpowered by the crew after passengers took matters into their own hands and started escaping from the plane.

A Congolese flight attendant who was shot by the hijacker while wrestling him to the floor of the plane was in satisfactory condition Saturday at Geneva Cantonal Hospital. About 10 other passengers remained hospitalized with bone fractures suffered while escaping the jet.

The gunman had demanded the release of Mohammed Ali Hamadi, 22, accused in West Germany of killing a U. S. Navy man during a Trans World Airlines jetliner hijacking in 1985 and Hamadi’s brother, Abbas Ali Hamadi, who is also being held in West Germany on undisclosed charges. Hariri also sought the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, serving life in prison in France in connection with the killing of an American and an Israeli diplomat in 1982, Ramlawi said.

Father’s Doubts Identity

In Lebanon, Hariri’s father said Saturday he doubts that photos of the hijacker published in local newspapers were of his son.

“I think that someone else used Hussein’s passport to stage the hijack,” Mohammed Ali Hariri told Reuters at his home in Deir Kanoun Al-Naher in southern Lebanon.

Identity papers on the captured gunman, an International Red Cross document, gave no nationality but Ramlawi said the man spoke with a heavy southern Lebanese accent.

In Paris, passengers who arrived home from Geneva on Friday night said they planned their bold escape by “exchanging looks and discreet gestures.”

Passenger Claude Jacquot, a French lawyer who lives in the Congo, said French travelers had their passports confiscated and were listed in alphabetical order by Hariri, who behaved “like a meticulous bureaucrat.”

Hariri called Beaulieu, who was first on the list. After he was shot in the head and carried off the plane, the gunman called the next two passengers on the list.

Witnesses said the gunman threatened to kill one passenger every five minutes until his demands were met.

It was then that the passengers in the back made their move, a witness said.

A small group threw open the rear doors of the plane and the rest made a dash for the exits.

“It’s a miracle that no one was killed in that stampede for the door,” Jacquot said.