GERMANY: The Berlin government has denied that the release of a member of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbullah from a German prison last week was related to Sunday's freeing of a German hostage in Iraq.
Mohammed Ali Hammadi left prison last Thursday, where he was serving a life sentence for hijacking a TWA aircraft and killing a US navy officer in June 1985. Diplomatic sources in Berlin said he flew back to Beirut on Friday. Two days later, German archaeologist Susanne Osthoff was released by hostage-takers in Iraq after three weeks in captivity.
"There is no connection between the two cases," said a foreign ministry spokesman. He said the release of Hammadi was the decision of the state government and not the federal government and rejected suggestions that the release conflicted with a US extradition request for Hammadi.
A spokeswoman for the state prosecutor in Frankfurt said Hammadi had spent 18 years in jail and had become eligible for release after serving the mandatory 15 years.
Together with an accomplice, Hammadi hijacked a TWA flight in June 1985 flying from Athens to Rome with 153 passengers on board and forced it to land in Beirut. On the second day of the hostage-taking, the badly beaten body of Robert Dean Stethem, a 23-year-old US navy officer, was thrown out on to the airport tarmac. He had been shot in the head.
The passengers were released on the third day except for 39 Americans who remained on board for the entire 17 days of the hostage-taking, as the plane flew several times between Beirut and Algiers. The standoff ended on June 30th, and the passengers were let go after the release was agreed of Hizbullah members imprisoned in Israel.
Hammadi was arrested at Frankfurt airport in 1987 after explosives were found in his baggage. He was put on trial in Germany in 1989 and sentenced to life imprisonment for participating in the hostage-taking, possession of explosives and the murder of Stethem, although he denied the killing.
Hizbullah says it does not operate in Iraq, although one leading member announced plans last year to form new chapters there. Some security analysts believe Hizbullah has links to Shia groups in Iraq that have carried out kidnappings in the past.
Few details have emerged about the kidnappers of Susanne Osthoff. One news magazine claimed that an Iraqi group named "Army of the Mujahideen" was behind the abduction, but the group denied the charge.