Bomb link suspected

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 10

Bomb link suspected

NZPA-Reuter Rome A bomb at Rome airport and attacks on airline offices in Madrid killed one person and injured at least 40 others yesterday, a day after the release in Beirut of 39 hostages from an American airliner. In Madrid a woman died and 28 people were hurt when a bomb exploded in a building housing offices of British Airways and the American airline, Trans World Airlines. A short distance away attackers threw two grenades and opened fire on the offices of Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines, injuring two people. The regional Government chief, Joaquin Leguina, said that it was likely the attacks were linked to the release of the Beirut hostages. “I think suspicions point

to an Arab group,” he said. In Rome a bomb went off in a suitcase at Fiumicino Airport, injuring 12 bag-gage-handlers. In Beirut a telephone caller saying he represented a group called the Organisation of the Oppressed told an international news agency that it made the Madrid bomb attack in response to President Ronald Reagan’s threat to strike against terrorism. In Jerusalem the Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Rabin, said that Israel had reason to believe extremist Shi’ites and Syriancontrolled Palestinians were behind the Madrid bombing. Most of the Madrid casualties were inside the main ticket office of the British Airways office where the bomb went off. It destroyed the premises and wrecked T.W.A. offices upstairs. Five minutes later two

men and a woman machinegunned and threw a grenade at the Alia offices about 200 metres away in a busy shopping area injuring two people, one an airline employee.

Last week a Spanish court sentenced two Shi’ites to 23 years imprisonment each for trying to murder a Libyan diplomat in Madrid last year. In Rome investigators were unsure of the bomb’s intended target. “We still don’t know where the suitcase was coming from or where it was headed for,” said the airport’s director, Raffaele Casagrande. The explosion blew a hole in the floor and shattered a glass booth used by bag-gage-handlers. Airport and police officials met later to discuss possible new security measures for baggage passing through Rome.