Derickson Says She Has Sought Psychiatric Aid

A flight attendant on a TWA airliner hijacked to Beirut in 1985 cried and became choked with emotion today during her testimony at the trial of Mohammed Ali Hamadi and said she has undergone psychiatric therapy as a result of the hijacking.

Ulrike (Uli) Derickson, 44, also testified that Hamadi’s accomplice also carried the pistol that killed U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, 23, one of the 145 passengers. She had testified Tuesday that Hamadi constantly brandished the gun but said she did not know who fired the fatal shots.

Questioned today by defense lawyers, Derickson, purser on TWA Flight 847, said she saw the other hijacker with the pistol “now and then.” The second hijacker remains at large.

Hamadi, who faces hijacking and murder charges, has admitted during the trial that began July 5 that he helped hijack the plane on June 14, 1985, during a flight from Athens to Rome. But he said his accomplice murdered Stethem.

Derickson, who has been called a heroine for her conduct during the hijacking, began to cry today when asked about the effect of her ordeal on her health.

Will Never Be the Same

Her voice became so choked with emotion she could not talk for about half a minute, then she told the court she would never be the same again. She said she had suffered from asthma since the hijacking and had undergone psychiatric therapy.

The prosecution asked the court to consider an additional charge against Hamadi in light of Derickson’s testimony Tuesday that Hamadi and his accomplice beat another passenger so brutally she thought he was dead.

Presiding Judge Heiner Mueckenberger did not rule immediately on the motion by the prosecution to charge Hamadi with the attempted murder of Kurt Carlson, a U.S. Army reserve major.

Mueckenberger, meanwhile, said an American television film about the 17-day hijacking shown in the United States on May 2, two months before Hamadi’s trial began, could have influenced witnesses.

He called the documentary film, which Derickson helped make, a “concoction.”

The film portrayed Hamadi as the commander of the hijacking operation and the murderer of Stethem.

Derickson told the court she had not been responsible for the film’s “artistic modifications.”