Abu Abbas’s wife said on Wednesday the former Palestinian guerrilla had nothing to do with the war in Iraq, where U.S. forces arrested him, and he should be freed. Abbas masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in which one passenger was killed, but has since renounced violence and has not been pursued for years by the United States or Israel. Italy, however, said it would seek to extradite the man sentenced in absentia to life in prison for planning the hijacking of the Italian liner in the Mediterranean. “I hope the American authorities free him. Abu Abbas is not a member of (Saddam Hussein’s) Baath Party or Iraqi leadership, and is not party to this war at all,” his wife, Reem al-Nimr, told al-Jazeera television in Beirut. She said she was surprised at his arrest in Baghdad on Monday, a few hours after she had chatted to him by telephone. In his mid-50s, Abbas spent much of the last 17 years in Iraq. Full Story
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