Word: hamadei
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Ever since Mohammed Ali Hamadei was arrested at Frankfurt airport last January after bottles of liquid explosive were found in his luggage, the West German government had been in a quandary. At first there was hope that the Lebanese terrorist suspect would be extradited to the U.S., where he and three others are wanted for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner from Athens to Beirut and the murder of a passenger, U.S. Navy Diver Robert Stethem. But when two West Germans were kidnaped in Beirut a few days after Hamadei's arrest, the government began temporizing. Last week, despite...
West Germany, which holds suspected TWA Hijacker Mohammed Ali Hamadei, 22, in a Frankfurt jail, wrestled with its own problems. The capture of Hamadei, who is wanted in the U.S. for the hijacking and the murder of Navy Diver Robert Stethem, seemed to have led to the kidnaping of the two West Germans in Beirut two weeks ago and helped set off the recent rash of abductions. Some German officials fear that giving in to U.S. pressure for speedy extradition of Hamadei could lead to more West German kidnapings. Still, the Germans last week arrested Abbas Ali Hamadei...
West German elation at Hamadei's arrest quickly dissolved when Cordes, then Schmidt, was kidnaped. It was immediately assumed that the abductors planned to use the West German hostages as bargaining chips for Hamadei's release. The hostage takings were a rude awakening for West Germans. For years Bonn has cultivated good relations throughout the Muslim world. Partly as a result, the three-year spree of kidnapings in Lebanon, until now aimed mostly at the U.S. and France, has had little impact on Germans living in Beirut, who continued to operate more or less normally...
...West Germans' captors lost no time making their demands known. Within 24 hours of Cordes' disappearance, officials in Bonn received word that his kidnapers were indeed demanding a hostage-for-prisoner swap. Suspicion immediately centered on the radical Shi'ite organization Hizballah (Party of God), to which Hamadei is thought to be linked. A West German radio station, quoting an unnamed Christian source in Beirut, said the abductions were planned by Hamadei's brother Abdul, who is thought to be a Hizballah security officer...
Bonn was also under pressure from the Reagan Administration to extradite Hamadei to the U.S., where he faces a dozen separate charges related to the 1985 hijacking. Early in the week, the Justice Department reluctantly agreed to promise that it would forgo the death penalty for Hamadei, bowing to a provision in the U.S.-West German extradition treaty that prevents Bonn from turning over prisoners who face capital punishment. After first indicating that extradition would be arranged quickly, Bonn officials grew concerned that any such course would doom one or both of the new hostages. Turning Hamadei over...