 |
 |
 |
|
|
Francesco Cossiga, ex-president of Italy: "the Palestinian organizations could even maintain armed bases of operation in the country, and they had freedom of entry and exit without being subject to normal police controls."
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff August 19, 2008 |
|
| |
 Bookmark to del.icio.us |
| |
Francesco Cossiga, former president of Italy, confirmed that his country for years provided Palestinian terror groups with sanctuary and allowed them to set up domestic bases in a secret deal according which the terrorists promised not to target Italian interests.
It was a deal with the devil, Mafia-style. "I always knew, though not by official documents and information kept from me, about the existence of an agreement based on 'don't harm me and I won't harm you' between the Italian Republic and organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the PLO," the Former Italian President said in a letter to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Cossiga was responding to an interview the newspaper conducted last week with Bassam Abu Sharif, a top official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, who claimed Italy in the 1970s provided his group with safe haven. "The terms of the agreement were that the Palestinian organizations could even maintain armed bases of operation in the country, and they had freedom of entry and exit without being subject to normal police controls, because they were 'handled' by the secret services," the former President wrote.
Cossiga stated the agreement was approved and directed, ironically enough, by former Italian Premier Aldo Moro, who in 1978 was kidnapped and assassinated by the Italian terror group the Red Brigades, close allies of their Palestinian terrorists.
"During my time as interior minister I learned that PLO people were holding heavy artillery in their homes and protected by diplomatic immunity as representatives of the Arab League. I was told not to worry and I managed to convince them to lay down their heavy artillery and make do with light weaponry," Cosinga wrote.
In his letter, the former Italian president also linked the Arab terrorist groups of the 1970s with the Italian far-left. According to Cossiga, he received a telegram from the head of an anti-Israel terrorist group headquartered at the time in Beirut requesting the return of one of their surface-to-air missiles that had gone missing. The missile was intercepted by Italian police while being "driven on the streets by a well-known ideologue of the extra-parliamentary left!" Cossiga wrote.
The pact with the Palestinians didn't turn out too well for Italy. Palestinian factions are blamed for attacks against Italy in the 1970s and 80s, including an attack at Rome's airport, its main synagogue, and the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in which the Palestinian terror pushed overboard a wheelchair bound American Jew, Leon Klinghoffer. Cossinga also said that Palestinian groups were to blame for a devastating 1980 explosion at an Italian train station that killed 85 people and wounded some 200. He said that was likely a "work accident" by Palestinians transporting explosives into Italy.
Some of the terror acts were believed to be committed by the Abu Nidal group, which did not accept the authority of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Comment on this article here. |
|
 
|
|
