Hijacker’s Transfer May Not Set Model

Fifteen years of U.S. pressure preceded Pakistan’s extradition this week of a man convicted in a deadly 1986 Pan Am hijacking, but the hand-over of the remaining four hijackers could face further delays, according to officials here.

The first of the hijackers, who were indicted by the U.S. in 1991, was delivered to American authorities Monday, winning high praise from President Bush. Zayd Hassan Safarini, a Jordanian national convicted in Pakistan for the hijacking in Karachi, was given to officials from Jordan, who then handed him over to the United States, a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Safarini was taken to Alaska, then to Washington, where he was arraigned in federal court Tuesday. He pleaded not guilty to charges related to the Sept. 5, 1986, hijacking that left 22 people dead, including two Americans.

Negotiations to bring the remaining four men to trial in the U.S. have been slowed by Pakistan’s insistence that they first be deported to a third country.

The five men, all linked to the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, were charged in the U.S. indictment with 126 counts, including murder and attempted murder of American citizens overseas.

Although the case is unconnected to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bush called the hand-over an example of increased international cooperation in “the wider war on terrorism.”

But Pakistani officials said Tuesday that hurdles remain before the other men can be extradited.

“Now the question is where should they go,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan said. Safarini “was deported to Jordan because he was of Jordanian nationality. We hope that the other countries will also be prepared to take the others who have completed their sentences in Pakistan.”

The issue is complicated because the nationalities of the hijackers are difficult to determine. Ringleader Salman Ali Turki traveled under several names on Libyan and Moroccan passports but claims to be Palestinian.

Mohammed Ahmed Munawar, Khalil Hussain Rahayyal and Sayed Abdul Rahim all claim to be Palestinians from Lebanon.

In the past, Pakistan has cooperated with the United States in high-profile cases. Although the two countries do not have a formal extradition treaty, Pakistan readily turned over citizens Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Mir Aimal Kasi, charged in the one-man attack on CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., also in 1993.

The case of the Karachi hijackers presents a different problem. The crime took place on Pakistani soil. The men were all tried, convicted and sentenced in Pakistani courts. Although 22 people died and 100 were wounded when the hijackers opened fire on the passengers, there is broad sympathy in Pakistan for the Palestinian cause, which the hijackers said they were seeking to promote.

Even the Pakistani president at the time, Gen. Zia ul-Haq, described them somewhat sympathetically as “very motivated and highly volatile youngsters.”

In a 1987 interview in Pakistan’s maximum-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, Turki admitted directing the plan to hijack the Pan Am jumbo jet flight from Karachi to Frankfurt, Germany, en route to New York.

Wearing airport security uniforms and driving a car bearing a siren and an official-looking “Texas Sheriff’s Assn.” decal, the hijackers seized the plane during boarding. After the flight crew escaped through an emergency exit, the hijackers executed an American passenger and dumped his body on the tarmac.

The incident ended after the hijackers panicked and began attacking passengers with guns and grenades, prompting Pakistani commandos to storm the plane.

Turki, who was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to death, defiantly told reporters that, if set free, “we will hijack another American plane. We will hijack again and again until Palestine is free.”

His and the others’ death sentences were later commuted, and the hijackers were due to be set free this month by Pakistani authorities.