Hijack Victim Wanted to Save Others, Trial Told

U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem said shortly before he was slain on a hijacked TWA jetliner that he was ready to die to save the lives of other passengers, a witness testified Wednesday.

Australian Ruth Henderson told a Frankfurt court how she tried to comfort Stethem after he had been badly beaten by the hijackers of Trans World Airlines Flight 847 in June, 1985.

Stethem was later shot to death and his body thrown onto the runway at Beirut airport.

Henderson, 20, was testifying at the trial of Mohammed Ali Hamadi, a Lebanese Shiite Muslim charged with air piracy and murder in the hijacking of the Athens-to-Rome flight.

Hamadi has admitted taking part in the hijacking but denies shooting Stethem.

Henderson said she sat next to Stethem on the plane for several hours after Stethem, 23, of Waldorf, Md., had been beaten.

The witness, her voice often shaking, said she tried to lift Stethem’s spirits by talking about everyday things.

“He was quite badly injured and he was crying,” she told the court. “His injuries included a bleeding head and back. His wrists had been tied very tightly and he had no feeling in his hands. His knees and ribs were very sore.”

She said Stethem told her he had been kicked in the ribs and knees.

“We talked about unimportant things, about his diving, about Greece. By talking about normal things, he seemed to relax and forget the pain. It helped keep both our minds off the ordeal,” she said.

“He was unable to light or hold a cigarette and I had to do it for him,” she continued. “He said that if he lived, he thought his life would never be the same again.

“He said how it may be better that he died. He believed that someone would die on the plane, someone from the Navy men, and he said that because he was the only one who wasn’t married, that he should be the one to die. He spoke with a clear mind,” Henderson testified.

There were six U.S. Navy divers on the plane. Thirty-nine Americans were held hostage 17 days during the ordeal.

“He didn’t believe that all of us could get out alive. He felt it was fair that he dies so that the rest of us could live,” the witness said.

Henderson said she did not know whether Hamadi or an accomplice, Hassan Izzaldin, shot Stethem. The accomplice remains at large.