Hijacker may have been executed

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 10

Hijacker may have been executed

By

DAVID K. SHIPLER,

of

“The New York Times” (through NZPA) Jerusalem Evidence is Accumulating that one of the Arab terrorists who hijacked an Israeli bus last week was captured alive and killed later. An Israeli Army spokesman has issued a flat denial. His mother, uncle, cousin, and neighbours have identified him as the terrorist photographed by an Israeli newspaper as he was being led, handcuffed, from the bus by two security agents.' The picture was shown on Tuesday to people in the Gaza Strip village of Bani Suheila by a reporter from the paper “Hadashot.” The Israeli military censor has barred publication of the picture. The photograph, taken with a flash, is of excellent quality, and many residents who saw it said that they recognised the man as Majdi abu-Jumaa, aged 18.

A neighbour provided the paper with a snapshot of the young man taken a year ago, and the resemblance is unmistakable. Several days ago he was named by the Israeli Army spokesman as one of four terrorists who had taken part in the hijackWhen news of the photograph came to light several days ago an Army spokesman speculated that the man being led away alive and apparently unharmed had been a passenger, possibly one under suspicion for collaboration with the hijacking. An Army spokesman has since stuck to this position. When asked to respond to the assertions by relatives and neighbours that the hijacker had been killed, the spokesman said, “Any accusation that we killed them after we captured them, I give you a flat denial on that.” Autopsies had been done on all four bodies, he

said. After the hijacking, the Defence Minister, Mr Moshe Arens, said in a television interview, “Whoever plans terrorist acts in Israel must know that he won't get out alive.” But an Army spokesman emphatically denied that there was any policy to kill captured terrorists, and insisted that all four had been killed in the assault. There has still been no positive identification of the man by the hostages. The picture has been shown to four bus passengers, none of whom were able to say whether he was one of the hijackers. It is not known whether they saw their captors clearly. The four were buried on Sunday under Army supervision in a cemetry in the Gaza Strip, with one relative from each family permitted to attend. Majdi abuJumaa’s body was identified there by an uncle, Muham-

mad Abdullah Abdel-Fatah abu-Jumaa, and another man from the village, Subhi Mahmoud Barakch, who was also present because his son, Muhammad, was among the terrorists. When they saw Majdi’s body, they said, his head was covered with blood, although no wound can be seen in the picture, which was taken two days earlier, immediately after the assault on the bus.

The hijacking occurred on Thursday as the bus was travelling south on the coastal highway on a regular commuter run from Tel Aviv to the Mediterranean city of Ashkelon. The four Arabs, all residents of the occupied Gaza Strip, forced the driver to speed into the Gaza Strip. The bus was halted when policemen and soldiers shot out its tyres. Three passengers were wounded.

Then a 10-bour stand-off began, during which the hi-

jackers demanded the release of 500 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. There were about 35 passengers aboard. At dawn on Friday Israeli troops stormed the bus, killing two of the terrorists instantly and fatally wounding a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, Irit Portugez. Seven other passengers were hurt. Reporters and photographers saw two of the terrorists dead in the bus. Some saw another figure being carried on a stretcher to a tent that was cordoned off; he may have been the third hijacker. The fourth was apparently abu-Jumaa.

Soldiers who took part in the assault told reporters that they had killed three of the terrorists. Later news reports said that two had been killed and two captured. Throughout most of Friday the Army kept silent on the terrorists’ fate, an uncharacteristic practice in Israel, where such details

are usually released immediately. Only late on Friday afternoon did the Army spokesman say that all four had been killed. When a photographer from “Hadashot,” Alex Levac, took a picture of abu-Jumaa being led away, security men had pounced on him, he said, and demanded his film. He gave them another roll instead. On the advice of its lawyer “Hadashot” declined to lend a print to “The New York Times” for identification purposes. But this correspondent and a “Times” photographer and translator were shown the picture. Three men are visible from the waist up: abu-Jumaa flanked by two men in civilian clothes, one pointing a finger angrily at the camera while holding his prisoner firmly by the collar of his white jacket. The other is holding abu-Jumaa by the arm. Handcuffs are clearly vis-

ible around the prisoner’s wrists, but there is no evidence of any wounds. He appears to be standing on his own. When the picture was shown in Bani Suheila, it was cropped so that only abu-Jumaa’s face was visible, not the security men or the handcuffs. Dozens of village residents, asked whether they had seen the picture, crowded around a reporter to say that they had, and that it was definitely Majdi. “Yes, it was Majdi,” said his mother, Fatma abuJumaa, as she stood outside the ruins of her house. It was bulldozed into rubble by the Israeli Army, standard practice for the homes of terrorists. His cousin, who would give only his first name — Farid — declared in response to repeated questioning: “It was a clear picture. I am sure 100 per cent that it was him."