Woman found after liner hijack ends

Press, 11 October 1985, Page 1

Woman found after liner hijack ends

NZPA-AFP Port Said

The Austrian woman passenger who was believed missing from the hijacked Italian cruise liner was found alive during the night, the Austrian Ambassador to Egypt, Mr Franz Bogen, said yesterday. The young woman, whose first name is Hernanda but whose surname was not known, remained hidden for two days in her cabin after the liner Achille Lauro was hijacked on Monday by Palestinian commandos.

She apparently emerged only after the commandos surrendered and left the ship on Wednesday at Port Said.

The Italian Ambassador to Egypt, Mr Giovanni Migliuolo, had said early yesterday that the Austrian woman could not be found, in addition to a missing American passenger, Mr Leon Klinghoffer, who according to the ship’s master was killed by the hijackers and thrown overboard.

Egypt’s promise to free the four Palestinians who seized the liner caused outrage among United States officials in Washington and Cairo.

The guerrillas surrendered after a 52-hour terror cruise in the eastern Mediterranean in which they extracted a promise of safe conduct out of Egypt. They were taken into custody and the United States Ambassador to Egypt, Mr Nichola Veliotes, called for the “sons of bitches” to be prosecuted. ) He was flown out to the Achille Lauro before she berthed at Port Said, with about 80 passengers

and 330 crew. Egypt’s Ambassador to the United States said in a United States television interview that the four had been turned over to the Palestine Liberation Organisation under the deal that ended the hijacking and “I don’t know where they are." Mr Migliuolo, who boarded the ship before she berthed, said an Italian sailor was wounded during the take-over.

The Palestinians, who threatened in a radio message to kill the Britons and Americans on board, separated United States citizens from the other hostages and threatened to burn them alive as they sat on the deck, passengers said. Angry United States officials demanded that Egypt bring the Palestinians to justice for the killing of Mr Klinghoffer, aged 69, a wheelchair-bound retired New York shopkeeper, who was said to have been shot and thrown in the sea.

A passenger, Mr Seymour Meskin, of Shore Hill, New York, said he was sitting with his wife and two friends in the diningroom when “all of a sudden there were shots coming out of the area where the kitchen is and where the crew have dinner.

“From that end of the diningroom these four guys came running' through armed with machine-guns. They had hand grenades on their belts," he said in a television interview. The hijackers had demanded the release of Palestinians jailed in Israel and other countries.

Further report, page 6