Why the man behind Leon Klinghoffer’s murder went free

Amid the ongoing controversy over the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of “The Death of Klinghoffer,” little has been said about the Palestinian leader who was the mastermind behind the 1985 attack in which Leon Klinghoffer was murdered.

The decision to hijack the Achille Lauro cruise ship was made by Muhammad Zaidan, (aka Muhammad Abbas or Abu Abbas), leader of the Palestine Liberation Front (not to be confused with his comrade-in-arms Mahmoud Abbas, current president of the Palestinian Authority).

Four of Abu Abbas’s agents seized the ship, terrorized the passengers, and murdered the wheelchair-bound, 69 year-old Klinghoffer. They also demanded the release of 50 Palestinian terrorists being held in Israeli prisons. When the Israelis refused to negotiate, Abbas’s gang forced the ship to sail to Egypt. The Egyptian government arranged for them to flee by plane, but the U.S. air force intercepted the plane and forced it to land in Italy. The Italians, however, refused to extradite the terrorists to America, and instead put them on trial. All four were convicted, but two were set free in just six years; the other two were released in 2008 and 2009.

As for Abbas, the Palestinian leadership rallied around him. Arafat’s foreign minister, Farouk Kaddoumi, accused Mrs. Marilyn Klinghoffer of murdering her husband for insurance money. Abbas himself offered an alternative explanation, at a press conference in Algeria in 1988: “Maybe he was trying to swim for it.”

With Arafat’s endorsement, Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Front continued carrying out terrorist attacks. In fact, it was Arafat’s refusal to condemn a Palestine Liberation Front attack in 1990 that prompted President George H.W. Bush to rescind his earlier recognition of the PLO. After the 1990 attack, Abbas disappeared from public view. The U.S. government issued a warrant for his arrest and offered a $250,000 reward for his capture. The hunt was on.