The Palestinian Authority demanded on Wednesday the United States free Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Abbas, saying his detention by U.S. forces in Iraq violated a Middle East peace deal signed by Washington. Abbas, also known as Mohammed Abbas, masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean in which a disabled elderly American Jewish passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and thrown overboard. “We demand the United States release Abu Abbas. It has no right to imprison him,” Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told Reuters. Abbas was sentenced in absentia in Italy to life in prison for planning the hijacking. Although he was the target of a manhunt after the incident, Washington dropped a warrant for his arrest several years ago. “The Palestinian-Israeli interim agreement signed on September 28, 1995 stated that members of the Palestine Liberation Organization must not be detained or tried for matters they committed before the Oslo peace accord of September 13, 1993,” Erekat said. Full Story
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