Thanks Germany for letting this terrorist scum free

Gonzales Asked Germany to Hold TWA Hijacker
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales personally asked the German government not to release a terrorist accused of killing a Navy diver, but was rebuffed, the Bush administration said Wednesday.

Mohammed Ali Hamadi was freed on parole by German authorities after serving 19 years of a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA plane during which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. The 17-day ordeal riveted the United States and brought Middle East terrorism home for many Americans.

"We did, at senior levels at the U.S. government, contact the German authorities to emphasize that we thought it was important that he serve out his entire term, but we did so with a full understanding that under German law it was highly likely that he was going to be released," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions are ongoing, said the United States believes Hamadi was released from temporary custody in Lebanon and has disappeared.

Lebanon is an emerging U.S. ally in the volatile Middle East, with a new democratically elected government and growing diplomatic and economic ties with the West. Lebanon's Syrian-allied prime minister remains in power, however, and the country is still largely defined by sectarian politics.

The United States has no extradition treaty with Lebanon.

"We have been in contact with them on the issue," McCormack said. "And at this point I think what I can assure anybody who's listening, including Mr. Hamadi, is that we will track him down. We will find him. And we will bring him to justice in the United States for what he's done."

Lebanese authorities questioned whether they have any grounds to hand over Hamadi.

"They (U.S. authorities) could have asked Germany to hand him over to the United States. Why are they asking us?" Prime Minister Fuad Saniora told reporters Wednesday.

The United States had sought to prosecute Hamadi when he was arrested in Germany in 1987, but the Germans would not turn him over. The United States has periodically asked that Hamadi not be released early, requests that intensified as his potential parole date approached.

Gonzales contacted his German counterpart within the last month, McCormack said. A Justice Department official confirmed Gonzales' involvement but could not provide an exact date or details of the conversation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussion was private.
The State Department said the United States did not renew its extradition request to Germany as Hamadi neared release because German law would not permit him to be handed over for prosecution for a crime already prosecuted in German courts.

Trans World Airlines Flight 847, with 145 passengers and nine crew members, was flying from Athens to Rome on June 14, 1985, when it was hijacked by Shiite Muslim militants demanding the release of hundreds of Lebanese from Israeli jails.

The plane was forced to crisscross the Mediterranean from Lebanon to Algeria, landing in Beirut three times before it was finally allowed to remain there. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, 23, was killed and his body dumped on the Beirut tarmac.

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