Many might remember the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 back in the mid 80s. It was among the last in a series of hijackings by Middle Eastern terrorists that started in the 70s, and featured the cold-blooded killing of a 23 year old Navy diver, Robert Stethem. The bastards dumped his body out the passenger door and onto the tarmac after murdering him. His memory has been honorably maintained.
Germany just secretly released the main instigator of the act, Mohammed Ali Hamadi. He's in the picture at the top in the middle talking to the press during the event. He was serving time in a German cell before being released.
One of the hijackers, Mohammed Homadi, was arrested two years later in Frankfurt, Germany. He was tried and convicted of Stethem's murder. He is serving a life sentence in Germany. On October 10, 2001, three of the alleged hijackers, Imad Mugniyah, Ali Atwa, and Hassan Izz-Al-Din were placed on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. Rewards of $25 million for information leading to their arrests and convictions are currently being offered by the United States.
I guess their life sentence included a release clause for the purposes of expedient political manueverings. America tried to extradite him but Germany steadfastly refused due to our death penalty possibility. Now he runs free along with his compatriots-in-crime.
There's widespread speculation Germany released him in exchange for the freeing of their kidnapped civilian in Iraq. Makes sense. Perhaps Merkel is showing her mushy constituents and allies her tough gameplan for the War on Terror--just let em go. If true it should also make us realize Hezbollah is still alive and kicking.
The black and white picture on the right sidebar is the Captain of TWA 847, John Testrake. He was a personal hero of mine, for a number of reasons. He's no longer with us, so we can only wonder how he might have reacted to the news.
He was a Christian, so part of me thinks he would have suggested we forgive the man and move on. Another part of me says he might have suggested strapping him to the tarmac at O'Hare during rush hour.
MORE 12/20
Maybe Merkel's not so bad after all:
"The US will make every effort to see that this individual faces justice in the US."
And we couldn't very do that while he was sitting in a German prison. We'll see. I tend to think there was a strategic reason for this release.
MORE 12/28
Captain Ed has the skinny on Germany's utter revulsion over their released hostage Susanne Osthoff desire to return to Iraq. Although most believe there was some kind of exchange, I've been a bit perplexed on how it transpired. Hamadi was a Shiite Hezbollah terrorist, and Osthoff was being held, we were told, by Sunni extremists. Unless there was some kind of three-way trade, I can't see that coming down. There's a chance the Germans paid cash for Osthoff and the release of Hamadi was coincidental, either way not a good start to the terror war business for Merkel.
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