Arab on Trial, Urges Release of W. German

The trial of alleged terrorist Abbas Ali Hamadi began Tuesday in Duesseldorf with the defendant declaring his innocence and calling for the release of the West German businessman he is accused of helping to kidnap.

Rudolf Cordes and another West German businessman, Alfred Schmidt, were abducted in West Beirut last January after Hamadi’s younger brother, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, was arrested at the airport in Frankfurt on Jan. 15 for his alleged part in the hijacking of a TWA jetliner in June, 1985.

The prosecution charges that the kidnapings were an attempt to pressure the West German government to free Mohammed Hamadi and that Abbas Hamadi was an accomplice in the abduction.

Cordes Remains Hostage

Schmidt was freed last September but Cordes remains a hostage, presumably in Beirut.

Abbas Hamadi’s lawyer, Eckhard Hild, told the heavily guarded courtroom, “Although (Hamadi) directly, or indirectly, rejects the charges, he appeals to the kidnapers to release Cordes.”

Mohammed Hamadi is being held in West Germany on charges that he was directly involved in the hijacking of a TWA 727 from Athens to Beirut. A U.S. Navy diver was shot to death in the course of the hijacking.

Abbas Hamadi, 29, who was arrested at the Frankfurt airport with his brother Jan. 15 but was released, returned to Beirut. There, it is alleged, he helped to organize the kidnaping of the two Germans by a group calling itself the Freedom Strugglers. The group offered to release the Germans in exchange for the younger Hamadi’s release.

Arrested Upon Return

Abbas Hamadi was arrested on the kidnaping charge at the Frankfurt airport Jan. 27, 1987, upon his return to West Germany.

Schmidt was released only after extended, secret negotiations between Bonn and contacts in the Middle East, along with appeals to Syria and Iran.

In court Tuesday, Hamadi, a slender man with a thick black beard, wore an open-neck black shirt and a gray jacket. He spoke in German and on several occasions joked with the prosecutor and the judge.

He said he would discuss the details of his life but not the charge against him. Under West German law, the defendant does not enter a formal plea.

The prosecution said it bases its case in part on evidence from telephone calls made by Abbas Hamadi from West Germany to Lebanon. Presumably, his telephone was tapped.

Personal History Traced

Much of the trial’s first day was taken up in tracing Hamadi’s personal history. The court was told that he was a refugee from Lebanon and that he applied for political asylum in West Germany in 1979 but was refused. He appealed, and while the appeal was being considered, married a German woman, becoming a West German citizen in 1984. He and the woman were divorced last year.

The trial is expected to last about six weeks. Hamadi faces up to 15 years’ imprisonment.

No date has been set for the trial of his brother, Mohammed, whom the United States had sought to extradite for murder in connection with the Navy man’s death. The West German government rejected Washington’s request, saying it would try Mohammed Hamadi here on charges of murder and air piracy.

Both trials will be watched closely as a test of the Bonn government’s determination to prosecute terrorists at a time when a West German citizen is being held hostage.

Statement from Kidnapers

In Beirut, the Freedom Strugglers, a radical Shia Muslim group, warned that the West German authorities should be “careful in what they do” with Abbas Hamadi.

In a typewritten Arabic statement, the group also accused authorities of treating Mohammed Hamadi “in the most inhuman manner” but did not elaborate.

“We do not allow this and will not let it continue,” the group added in the statement, delivered to a Western news agency along with a snapshot of Cordes--the first since he was abducted.

Cordes, 53, is the Beirut manager for one of West Germany’s largest chemical companies.