Italy expels Achille Lauro hijacker

Date: 28 / 06 / 2009 Time: 16:19

[Ma'anImages - Archive]

Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies – Italy has decided to deport to Syria a Palestinian man who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise liner and killed an American passenger in 1985, AP reported on Sunday.

According to an attorney, Youssef Magied Al-Molqui was to be flown from Palermo, Sicily, to Rome and then on to Damascus on Saturday, AP said.

In April, Italy transferred Al-Molqui to a holding center for migrants in Sicily after spending 23 years in prison.

Al-Molqui was a member of the four-man team that seized control of the Achille Lauro off the Egyptian coast. He was convicted of shooting Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly Jewish man from New York, and ordering him to be dumped in the sea while in his wheelchair.

The four were members of the Palestine Liberation Front faction, had demanded that Israel release 50 Palestinian prisoners. The hostages on board the ship were eventually released in Egypt after negotiations involving representatives of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Last week, another Palestinian man involved in the hijacking, Khaled Hussein, died in an Italian jail of a heart attack. He was 73.