Paris Should Be Embarrassed : Why was terrorist George Habash ever allowed into France?

George Habash is an international terrorist who heads an organization with a sordid record of airliner hijackings and civilian massacres dating back many years. The blood of scores of innocent people is on his hands. Yet last week the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was allowed to enter France, allegedly for urgently needed medical treatment. There he remained in a tightly guarded hospital for three days until a political outcry forced his departure.

The Habash affair has become a major scandal, so far leading to the resignations of high-ranking officials in the Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministry and of the director of the French Red Cross, who is also a key adviser to President Francois Mitterand. Opposition parties say that the political masters of these civil servants must also be held to account. Mitterand and his top ministers all deny knowing that Habash wanted to come to France.

Deepening the scandal now is a report of a post-departure interview with Habash that indicates he was not as ill as claimed. Earlier, an anti-terrorism investigator was told while Habash was in the hospital that a stroke had left him unable to speak. The investigator wanted to question Habash about an arms cache found outside Paris in 1986.

Habash may be better known to the world for his deeds than for his name. Among other outrages he was behind was the hijacking of an Air France plane to Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976, an incident that ended with a notable rescue operation by Israeli commandos. Habash’s PFLP also enlisted the guns of Japanese Red Army terrorists for a massacre in a Tel Aviv airport terminal in 1972. The PFLP was heard from most recently when it attacked an Israeli bus last October, killing two civilians.

There has yet to be a credible explanation why this man was allowed into France, and why once there he was not detained for the crimes he has committed against many states, including France. The Mitterand government is reported to be deeply embarrassed. It has a lot to be embarrassed about, not least its apparent indifference to the opportunity to bring to justice someone for whom justice is long overdue.