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| By israelinsider staff April 16, 2003 |
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Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Abbas, mastermind of the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985, has been captured by U.S. forces and is in their custody in Baghdad, CNN reported.
Abbas was arrested about 50 miles west of Baghdad after being turned away from Iraq's border with Syria, a Palestinian source told CNN. But an American official told Reuters that Abu Abbas "was captured during a raid on a house in the outskirts of Baghdad late last night."
Abbas is the leader of the Iraq-based Palestinian Liberation Front, which hijacked the ship in the eastern Mediterranean. The Palestinian terrorists forced American and British passengers on the deck, then shot the disabled elderly American Jew, Leon Klinghoffer, in the head at close range then threw him and his wheelchair into the sea as his wife Marilyn and the other passengers on deck looked on.
The PLF is officially designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist group. Abu Abbas faces charges and 5 life sentences in Italy, and expired charges in the United States might also be renewed, the news network said.
Abbas was based in Baghdad, under Saddam Hussein's protection, but was a member of the Palestinian National Congress and occasionally traveled to the Palestinian territories.
Abbas had spent most of the past 17 years in Iraq, beyond the reach of U.S. and Italian officials. He had been sentenced in Italy to five life terms in prison, and is wanted in the United States in connection with the cruise ship hijacking.
There were reports in January that Abbas was in Egypt to take part in talks to end Palestinian attacks on civilians in Israel, but Egyptian authorities denied he was in the country.
"CNN can now report that Abu Abbas ... has been captured by U.S. forces in or near Baghdad," the network's national security reporter David Ensor said.
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