Word: rome
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ordinary skyjacking, no incident involving some troubled soul who needed to be jollied or sweet-talked or strong-armed out of a free ride to Havana or Timbuktu. It was an American plane, Trans World Airlines' Flight 847 on its leg from Athens to Rome, with 153 passengers and crew members aboard, at least 100 of whom were Americans. Most important, the hijackers were identified by an accomplice as members of Islamic Jihad (or Holy War), the shadowy Shi'ite Muslim organization that is regarded as a sort of umbrella for various fundamentalist terror groups operating in Lebanon and other...
Scarcely 20 minutes after the plane had taken off for Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport, on a flight that was supposed to continue via a Boeing 747 to Boston, Los Angeles and San Diego, it was taken over by the two terrorists, who wildly brandished their grenades and pistol. They gave the pilot, Captain John Testrake of Richmond, Mo., the first order: fly to Beirut. At Beirut International Airport, the last thing officials wanted was a skyjacking crisis on their hands, and so they blocked the airport runway with buses and other obstacles. But the terrorists and their captive...
During 2 1/2 days of often contradictory testimony in a Rome courtroom, Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, gave the first courtroom explanations last week of where he learned his deadly skills. Agca declared that in 1977 he had been trained by "Bulgarian and Czech experts" in a camp in Latakia, Syria. He said that he and other Turkish terrorists, together with trainees from France, Italy, Spain and West Germany, were instructed in the use of guns and bombs. Then he added: "I affirm with certainty that...
Escorted from his cell in Rome's Rebibbia Prison by a heavy police convoy, Mehmet Ali Agca arrived in a high-security courtroom in Rome last week, presumably to tell a jury that he had been hired by Bulgarian intelligence officials to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981. But as the 27-year-old Turk settled into his white steel cage in a former gymnasium converted to a courtroom, he had loftier matters on his mind. "I am Jesus Christ!" Agca shouted. "I am omnipotent. I announce the end of the world. All will be destroyed." The bizarre outburst...
...Soviet Union, where a national committee has been formed to issue statements in defense of Sergei Antonov, the former representative in Rome of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines and the only Bulgarian defendant present in the courtroom, the press leaped on Agca's outbursts as evidence that his story was worthless. Prosecutor Marini disagreed. "When (Agca) begins to talk about facts," he said, "he is extremely reliable." Still, Marini was relieved when Bagci calmly, albeit reluctantly, held up under intense questioning...