Plane Hijacker Lured Into U.S. Custody Gets 30 Years

A Lebanese hijacker lured into U.S. custody was sentenced today to 30 years in federal prison for commandeering a Jordanian airliner in 1985 and holding its crew and passengers hostage for 30 hours.

U.S. District Judge Aubrey Robinson sentenced Fawaz Younis to 30 years in prison for taking hostages, 20 years for aircraft piracy and five years for conspiracy. The sentences are to run concurrently.

Robinson could have imposed a term of life imprisonment, but he noted that no one on the plane had been killed. He said, however, that a lengthy prison term is required because time “will never wipe out what is in the minds” of the passengers and crew subjected to the hijacking.

Younis, who has spent the last two years in custody, could be eligible for parole in eight years, U.S. Atty. Jay Stephens said after the sentencing.

Stephens said that the term is fair and substantial and that it sends a clear message to people “who would engage in acts of international terrorism.”

At his sentencing, the convicted hijacker asked the judge for leniency, saying he is not a terrorist and that he treated the two Americans aboard the airliner as “friends.”

Younis was convicted March 14 of storming the Jordanian airliner in Beirut with four other gunmen and holding the 70 passengers and crew hostage for 30 hours. All aboard, including two Americans, were freed before the plane was blown up.

In 1987, Younis was lured aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean on the pretext of a drug deal and grabbed by undercover FBI agents.