A tactical move
Why all the fuss now about Abul-Abbas, asks Samia Nkrumah from Rome
Abul-Abbas
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"The big question is why is this closed file now being opened again? Why was Abul-Abbas all but forgotten till a few weeks ago? Why was he allowed to move in and out of Gaza and the West Bank unimpeded in the past?" asked Nimr Hammad, head of the Palestinian delegation in Rome, commenting on the recent arrest in Baghdad of Mohamed Abbas, leader of PLO faction the Palestinian Liberation Front, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly.
Analysts here agree that Abul-Abbas, as his nom de guerre goes, has not been active for many years and neither has there emerged any evidence linking him with terrorist actions in recent years.
Living in Baghdad and engaged in business activities, he travelled to the Palestinian territories every now and then. He is a throwback to a bygone generation of Palestinian hijackers who tried to draw attention to their people's plight abroad, as one commentator described him.
Abul-Abbas had renounced violence and admitted that it was a mistake to kill Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly Jewish American passenger, during the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship sailing in Egyptian waters. Abul-Abbas had masterminded the operation but was eventually released quietly in what many believe was a deal brokered by the Italian government at the time to save the several hundred other passengers on board.
Moreover, according to Palestinian officials, his arrest is illegal. Hammad argues that the Oslo interim agreement signed between the PLO and Israel in 1995 stipulates that no PLO member can be tried for actions committed before 1993.
Nevertheless, this high-profile arrest has far- reaching political significance particularly given its timing.
Hammad agreed that, on one hand, the arrest serves to prove Washington's contention that Saddam Hussein collaborated and sheltered characters associated with "terrorism". And on another, the capture lends support to Israel's approach of clamping down on symbols of Palestinian militant resistance. Israel was one of the few governments to immediately laud the arrest of Abul-Abbas.
Also, Abul-Abbas might prove useful in revealing some information about the former Iraqi leader and his regime, especially since the whereabouts of Hussein and many of his close associates remain unknown.
In a previously unpublished letter written five years ago by Bettino Craxi, Italy's late prime minister, Craxi defended his country's role in securing the freedom and safety of Achille Lauro's passengers. The killing of Klinghoffer marred the otherwise successful freeing of several hundred passengers aboard the ship after negotiations with Abul-Abbas, who planned but did not physically take part in the operation.
The hijacking ended following negotiations involving the Italians, the Egyptians, the PLO and Abul-Abbas. The hijackers were subsequently flown in an Egyptian aircraft on their way to Tunisia. They were intercepted by American Delta Force troops who forced the plane down. But a standoff on the Italian airbase of Sigonella between American troops and Italian carabinieri, the Italian police force, allowed the passengers, including Abul-Abbas, to leave unimpeded.
Craxi wrote the letter, which was first printed this week in the Italian daily Il Riformista, just after Abul-Abbas had told another Italian paper, La Repubblica, that the hijackers would have died rather than been caught. Craxi's letter explains his government's decision and suggests that they were unaware of Abul-Abbas's complicity in the affair.
According to Craxi, Abul-Abbas himself was involved in the mediation and helped end it with the release of all but one passenger.
Craxi insisted that if his government stormed the Egyptian plane, according to American demands, a massacre involving Italians, Egyptians, Americans and Palestinians would have taken place.
The former prime minister admitted that Egypt helped resolve the hijacking incident and therefore there was no justification for straining Egyptian-Italian relations. It was the Egyptians who were instrumental in mediating for the release of the hostages of the cruise ship and, therefore, it was distasteful to reward them by attacking their plane, particularly knowing that the Egyptians had orders to defend their territory.
Subsequently, Abul-Abbas was tried in absentia in Italy and sentenced to life imprisonment, hence, the Italian justice minister's current request for Abul-Abbas's extradition. But the legal complexity of his case soon surfaced.
Currently, the extradition request not withstanding, Abul-Abbas might very well remain in American hands for the foreseeable future. As one Italian judge put it, it is well known that Washington would like to keep him in prison in the USA.
The extradition request is also one way in which the present Italian government can distance itself from the decision of the former government of Craxi, a personal friend of Italy's current Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The Achille Lauro incident had strained US-Italian relations at the time, whereas the Berlusconi government is now at pains to maintain its good rapport with Washington.
Berlusconi's pro-Washington government had another opportunity to show its loyalty to the US. This week, Italy announced that it would send a 3,000-strong force to provide humanitarian support and help in policing the Iraqi streets.
