October 7th, 1985. The Italian cruise ship, ‘Achille Lauro’, carrying passengers from all over the world, is hijacked off the coast of Egypt by a Palestinian commando. It’s the beginning of a three-day ordeal that culminates in the murder of an American hostage and an armed standoff between two NATO allies to capture his killers. As the anniversary of the hijacking approaches, this film brings together the main protagonists for the first time, to reveal what really happened.
The hijackers are four armed men of the Palestine Liberation Front, an armed wing of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation. Negotiations go on for three nerve-wracking days, amid intimidation and fear of an imminent tragedy. The passengers are divided by nationality and the Americans and British are separated from the rest along with two Jewish Austrians. The hijackers demand the liberation of 50 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and force the ship’s captain to navigate towards the Syrian port of Tartus.
The implicated countries react in various ways to the hijacking. America deploys special forces in the Mediterranean for an armed intervention. The Italian government mobilises units from an elite battalion, but opts for a diplomatic solution, putting pressure on PLO leader Yasser Arafat, with whom they have secret agreements, to negotiate with the terrorists on board the ship. Arafat, who claims no prior knowledge of the hijacking, sends Abu al Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front, to Port Said as a mediator. Abbas also claims no knowledge of the hijacking but is actually its mastermind. The negotiations are successful, and the four Palestinians agree to release the passengers in exchange for safe passage to Tunis, where the PLO headquarters is based. The men are taken into custody by the Egyptians. It’s only at this point that the news of a murder on board becomes public. The victim is Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-American passenger confined to a wheelchair. Two crew members had been forced to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. The murder had been kept secret by the ship’s captain, apparently to avoid a massacre.
News of the killing triggers an international uproar and President Reagan demands the hijackers be handed over to be tried in the US. Egypt maintains the hijackers have left the country, but Israeli intelligence indicates they’re still there. The plane on which they planned to escape, accompanied by Abbas, is located, and President Reagan orders its interception. On the evening of October 10th, US fighter jets blockade the EgyptAir plane and force it to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily. After a tense armed standoff between US and Italian forces lasting over five hours, the Italian government insists on its jurisdiction and arrests the hijackers. The Americans want to extradite Abbas, but the Italians secretly put him on a flight to Yugoslavia, allowing him to escape. It’s the worst diplomatic and military crisis between the two NATO countries since the second world war.
Yasser Arafat and Abu Abbas initially deny any murder, until Klinghoffer’s body washes up on the Syrian shores. Abbas will continue to downplay ‘one man’s death’ as compared to the plight of the Palestinians, but the murder of Leon Klinghoffer will haunt him for the rest of his life. In 1986 the four hijackers are tried in Genoa, Italy, along with 11 accomplices. Nine, including mastermind Abbas, were tried in absentia.