The MS Achille Lauro.

[Bugman]

The hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro began October 7, 1985.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/achille-lauro-hijacking-ends

 

[milagros317]

The man murdered by the hijackers was Leon Klinghoffer. He was married to Marilyn, a cousin of my mother's.

PS: Eva Marie Saint, who played Marilyn Klinghoffer in the film Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair, was a lot better looking than my mother's cousin.

 

[Libertine]

Very brave of the Palestinian terrorists (sorry, we have to call them 'militants' nowadays) to hijack a civilian cruise ship and throw an old man overboard in his wheelchair.

 

[SamuelKhan]

One of Reagan's brightest moments is when he was on Air Force One, he ordered fighters from the USS Saratoga escort the 737 carrying the cockroaches to land in Italy to stand trial.

 

[milagros317]

It occurred to me that, while we who have posted in this thread are familiar with this hijacking/murder, many TMF members are not, not being old enough to remember it. Here is a brief account:

Achille Lauro Hijacking 1985
What happened during the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985?
Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, 1985

On October 7, 1985 four heavily armed terrorists representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, with some 100 mostly elderly passengers on board, in Egyptian waters. The hijackers demanded that Israel free 50 Palestinian prisoners, and to prove their determination, they shot and killed a disabled American tourist, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, and threw his body overboard with his wheelchair. After a two-day drama, the Egyptian government, unaware that Klinghoffer had been murdered, provided the hijackers with safe passage in exchange for freeing the ship and its passengers.

Once the murder had been discovered, US Navy F-14 fighters intercepted an Egypt Air 737 airliner flying the hijackers to freedom in Tunisia and forced it to land in Sicily. The terrorists were taken into custody by Italian authorities, were tried and convicted to long prison terms.

But Bassam al-Asker, one of the Achille Lauro hijackers, was granted parole in 1991. Ahmad Marrouf al-Assadi, another accomplice, disappeared in 1991 while on parole. Four others, including the mastermind, Abu Abbas, were convicted in absentia and remained at large.

Terrorist Abu Abbas

Abu Abbas, who was living freely in Yaser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority territory, has publicly claimed that Leon Klinghoffer “provoked” his killers into shooting him. In an interview with the Boston Globe (June 26, 1998), Abbas was aksed why his men murdered Klinghoffer. He replied:

"He created troubles. He was handicapped but he was inciting and provoking the other passengers. So the decision was made to kill him."

What did this event have to do with Yasser Arafat and the PLO? According to Israeli intelligence reports and information relayed by Italian Defence Minister Giovanni Spadolini:

…the terrorists were in contact, via the ship’s radio telephone, with a PLF [Palestine Liberation Front] co-ordinator in Genoa. He, in turn, got in touch with the PLO headquarters in Tunis for final instructions.

Personal note: My mother's cousin, who was Leon Klinghoffer's widow, died of colon cancer in February 1986.

 

[paracarl44]

I remember this story.

Very brave of the Palestinian terrorists (sorry, we have to call them 'militants' nowadays) to hijack a civilian cruise ship and throw an old man overboard in his wheelchair.

^Unfortunately these people have no regard to who they kill, this was further demonstrated on 9/11 when they hijacked innocent people on airplanes and then flying them into buildings.^