Pakistan Sentences Five Pan Am Hijackers to Death

Five Palestinians were convicted today and sentenced to hang for the bloody 1986 hijacking of a New York-bound Pan Am jumbo jet in which 21 people were killed.

The trial before a special one-judge tribunal began in September and was held in a makeshift courtroom in a prison in this town 30 miles west of Islamabad.

The plane, which took off from Bombay, India, was seized on the ground Sept. 5, 1986, in Pakistan’s southern port of Karachi. It sat on the Tarmac for 17 hours before Pakistani troops stormed it.

In addition to those killed, nearly 200 of the 400 passengers were wounded.

“We don’t care about the sentence,” said Mohammad Hafiz Turk, the accused mastermind. “We care only about the millions of Arabs and Islamic countries.”

Turk, a Libyan arrested in Islamabad less than a week after the hijacking, was convicted of conspiracy. He was the only one of the five not to board the Pan Am jet.

The other four--Mohammad Ahmed Munawar, Khalil Hussain Rahayyal and Saeed Abdul Rahim, all of Lebanon, and Abdul Latif Sairfani of Syria--were convicted of hijacking and murder.

All five were sentenced to hang for their roles in the hijacking and to 10 consecutive life sentences for the deaths of 10 people. Three of the four received an additional life sentence in the killing of an 11th person.

The four also were each fined the equivalent of $2,777 for each conviction. Half the money is to go to the families of the hijackers’ victims.

All five plan to appeal their sentences and have 30 days to do so. No date was set for the hangings.