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| Palestinian Hijacker Spared Death Penalty |
| 2003-12-16 |
| Sigh, it’s as much as we could get. EFL: The leader of a group of Palestinian terrorists who took over a Pan Am jet in Pakistan in 1986 and killed 22 people avoided the death penalty Tuesday under a plea bargain with the government. Under the deal, Zayd Hassan Abd Al-Latif Masud Al Safarini pleaded guilty to 95 charges - including murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder - and agreed to a sentence of three consecutive life terms plus 25 years. Wearing an orange prison jump suit, Safarini simply answered ``yes’’ through an interpreter to dozens of questions posed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan. Safarini’s case was the first in which federal prosecutors had sought the death penalty for a hijacker. Their efforts were stymied after Sullivan ruled last April that there was no federal capital punishment for air piracy at the time Safarini and three others took over the Pan Am Boeing 747 while it was parked at Karachi Airport in Pakistan on Sept. 5, 1986. Court papers say Safarini led the four-member group who boarded the Pan Am plane. The men, all members of the Abu Nidal Palestinian terrorist organization, demanded that prisoners in Cyprus and Israel be released and that they be flown out of Pakistan. After 15 hours, the hijackers began shooting and throwing hand grenades at the passengers and crew they had herded into one area of the plane. In all, 22 people were killed, including two Americans, and more than 100 wounded. The four hijackers, and a fifth mastermind, were convicted in Pakistan and given death sentences that were commuted to life imprisonment. Four of those convicted remain behind bars, but Safarini was released Sept. 27, 2001, after his sentence was reduced by a series of amnesties. U.S. law enforcement agents caught him the next day as he traveled to Jordan to join relatives. "Surprise!" After the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, it took Congress 12 years to write a new death penalty law, making some drug-related crimes capital offenses. Air piracy wasn’t added until 1994, along with dozens of other crimes. In his April ruling, Sullivan agreed with the defense that the 1994 law couldn’t be retroactively applied to the 1986 hijacking. A legal technicality meaning he gets to live out his life at tax payer expence. Meanwhile, 22 people are still dead. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 Ok, so they deemed that "air piracy" wasn't a capital crime... but how about murder? Why the fuck can't they execute him for that?!?! |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2003-12-16 9:29:21 PM |
| #1 Let someone do a Dahmer on him in prison....loose observation is all it takes |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-12-16 6:22:26 PM |