Sinai head killed

Press, 17 February 1984, Page 6

Sinai head killed

NZPA-Reuter Rome Gunmen in Rome shot dead the American official in charge of the multinational peace-keeping force in Sinai, sparking fears that Italy’s Leftist guerrillas could be making a comeback. Leamon Hunt, aged 56, the director-general of the Multinational Fcrce and Observers in Sinai, was ambushed yesterday as he returned home from work and died shortly afterwards in hospital. An anonymous telephonecaller told a Milan radio station that the “Fighting Communist Party” was responsible, and described Mr Hunt as the guarantor of the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel. Italian investigators identified the group with a hardline faction of the Red Brigades guerrilla organisation. The police and local residents said that Mr Hunt had been attacked as he arrived in a chauffeur-driven car outside the gates of his villa in an exclusive residential area where he lived with his wife, Joyce. As the driver opened the steel gate by remote-con-trol, a gunman leapt from a pursuing car and opened fire with an automatic rifle through the back window of Mr Hunt’s armoured AlfaRomeo limousine, hitting him in the head.

As the assailants escaped on foot, the driver took Mr Hunt to a nearby hospital. Transferred to another hospital. he died almost immediately. The 10-nation multinational force was set up in 1981 by Egypt and Israel with United States help.