Guerrillas want missiles back

Press, 9 June 1980, Page 8

Guerrillas want missiles back

NZPA-Reuter Rome The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has demanded that Italy gives back two Soviet-made missiles confiscated from Italian guerrillas last December. Interviewed in the magazine “Panorama,” Mr Bassam Abu- Sharif, described as the second-ranking member in the P.F.L.P. after its leader, Mr George Habash, said that the organisation was not talking of threats or reprisals. “We simply want to have back the missiles, which were paid for with the, funds of the Palestinian people,” he said. The SAM-7 missiles were found , last December on board a van’ driven by two Italian Leftists. The P.F.L.P. then asserted ownership, saying the missiles were in transit through Italy. But the two men,; along with another Italian; and ? a Jordanian, were all jailed for seven years.

Mr Sharif denied that there was a link between the P.F.L.P. and Italy’s Red Bri-

gades urban guerrillas. But he told the magazine: “We have excellent political relations with Italian revolutionary forces which have always supported our cause.”

Mr Sharif admitted that many Italians and other foreigners had been in P.F.L.P. training camps,, but denied that they were terrorists. “If after passing through our camps, they have afterwards joined the Red Brigades or other terrorist groups, we know nothing about it,” he said. The P.F.L.P. leader also denied assertions by former yAi

Red. Brigades member Mr Patrizio Peci that Palestinians supplied the guerrilla group with arms. “We are importers, not exporters, of arms, least of all to terrorists,” he said. “On the contrary, we should [be glad to buy them in Italy. [Anyway, why should an Italian come and ask us for [arms when Italy has one of the best-equipped arms black markets in the world?” said Mr Sharif.