Approved For Release J®Jw08^A<®*lsd^
Co on Trial
iiL'Jirsr*
- ",
rO on
'jki'.-
By Robert J. McCartney
WaiJwijfiM iy*t pWWfin ^ inr
:
,.FRANKFURT,
July 4—Shortly
after 2:30 a.m. on June
15,
1985,
.
radical Shiite hijackers wearing
:
Palm Beach suits and Italian shoes
dragged
U.S.
Navy
diver
Robert
•
Dean Stethem of Waldorf, Md„ to
the door of a TWA jet parked on a
, runway erf Beirut International Air-
port.
shot
hint
in
the
head
and
„ "“"Od his body to the tarmac.
Tuesday,
in
a
56.7
million,
highoecunty courtroom built for the
-.occasion, Lebanese Mohammed
Ali
_ Hamadei goes on trial on charges of
,
hanpg participated in the murder.
The
trial
will be
acrutinired by
Washington policymakers and
Bei-
rut kidnapers as a rare instance
in
Which a suspected
mttjor
interna-
*mal terrorist faces the court of a
Wem democracy.
W*e will be watching it closely as
8 Jpjure of effective western re-
KX,
ri:
err2rism '” “w L- Paul
,
'imTj
?t,te
. Department’s
terS
0r'
Vge
f0r
coumer
w
ll ^banon,
the
kidnapers
of
West
Cermati- chemical company
™?*gg JWolf Cordes also will J
They gra^ Srdes as
WestGer**
30^3 re,eas<'-- Two^offy?
?
81 Cermans were later kidded
m Lebanon but hare been reused.
„
rase
oarries
coiwderable
Wnbofe importance in me United
Wates, because the/drvmatic 17-day
JSJSSJ*
!3 °»s ¥ the best known
instances m which terrorists directly
challenged theJJ^. government.
memories, the
S'S“
l,rrp of Capt- John L.
UkTu Il *
televised
interview
in
tart,eV
efa^.7?7 cockpit whUe a hi-
a 8un
at
his head.
J^ike TO Derickson
be-
ame a heroine for refusing the hi-
^
rlsr!?
and
that she pick out
Wssporfo of passengers with Jew-
ish-sounding names.
, n3t
is ® an extremely important
case because of the brutality of the
crimes and the prolonged agony of
the passengers who were held hos-
tage,
Bremer said.
Thirty-nine Americans out of the
original
153 passengers and crew
were
held hostage
for the
full
days. More than 700 Moslem de-
tainees held by Israel were released
in stages, as the hijackers had de-
manded, after the hijacking ended.
Hamadei faces a mandatory
life
sentence if he is convicted of mur-
dering
Stethem.
The
prosecution
fno"fh° “U 12
k witnesses- “elud-
ing a large number of the American
.mS
er?' an
'?
'he
trial
is sched-
uled to last until December.
It is understood that none of the
Witnesses actually saw which hiiade
« Pulled the
trigger. Under£
I
man law, however, a hijacker could
be found guilty of murder if he was
Passengers have said thev saw a
"Tumbles
Z
Stethem to the front of the cabin
ter the shwtTng^
a ' r' 31X1 e>iUlt M'
duced
years
if
the
court
judges
t
it
is important that Ha-
madei
s
under
2 —and
there-
fore no
n adult—at
the time the
hijack in was planned. Persons be-
tween
: ages of
18 and
can
receive special
treatment
under
West G man law.
Acco
ing
to
the
birthdate
on
several fficial documents, Haniadei
turned
1 the day before the hijack-
ing be*
i, and now is 24,
A
d' ument
purported
to
be
a
Lebanc
: birth certificate indicating
that he
i four years younger—which
would
: quire that he be treated as a
juvenit
and
face
a
maximum
years’
entence— is not taken very
serioui even by his court-appointed
defensj
attorney,
Gabriele
Steck-
Bromrle.
Hanadei also faces sentences of
up to 15 years' imprisonment if con-
victed on a variety of other charges,
including
hijacking, hostage-taking,
aggravated robbery and what trans-
lates from German
as "robber-like
extortion." He face? lesser charges
of
causing
grievous, bodily
harm,
explosives violations arid forgery.
The stakes
in the case are mixed
for West Germany, where Hamadei
was caught 18 monthsago at Frank-
furt airport as he allegedly
tried
to
smuggle in four bottles of highly ex-
plosive liquid disguised as wine.
West
German,
aytjiorities
have
pledged
to
prosecute Hamadei
to
the
full force of the |aw, and they
know that any backsliding will draw
bitter protests from Washington.
Court
officials here and
federal
officials
in
Bonn
emphasized
that
the nation’s judiciary Jg Independent
of outside pressures. But Bonn also
(
(
wants to safeguard hostage Cordes ^
in Lebanon and has already disap-
pointed Washington by
refusing
a
year ago
to extradite Hamadei
to
the United States to stand trial.
MOHAMMED AU HAMADEI
.
. accused of hijacking TWA je
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
: CIA-RDP96-00789R000400020002-4