http://www.vosizneias.com/30970/2009/04/30/italy-hijacker-of-cruise-ship-who-killed-jew-in-wheelchair-released-early-from-prisonPalermo, Italy - The leader of the Palestinian guerrillas who hijacked the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985 and killed an American Jewish passenger has been released from prison early.
Youssef Magied al-Molqui was released from a Palermo prison and a judge had ordered him expelled from Italy.
Al-Molqui, who is married to an Italian woman, served nearly 24 years of a 30-year sentence handed down by an Italian court after the hijacking. He was released early for good behavior.
During the action, four Palestinians shot dead an American Jew, Leon Klinghoffer, who was in a wheelchair, and threw his body overboard. His corpse washed ashore several weeks later.
Al-Molqui was held principally responsible for the murder and is believed to be the last of the four hijackers who was in prison.
Klinghoffer's killing was discovered after the hijackers allowed the ship to dock in Egypt and they initially managed to escape.
Later, U.S. fighter jets intercepted an Egyptian plane on which the hijackers were trying to flee and forced it to land in Sicily, where the four hijackers were arrested.
Relations between Italy and the United States nosedived at the time because Italy allowed Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Abbas, who had masterminded the hijacking and who was aboard the Egyptian plane, to escape to then-Yugoslavia.
In 1996, al-Molqui failed to return to prison after a 12-day leave. He was later arrested in Spain. At the time, the United States put a $2 million bounty on his head.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_KlinghofferLeon Klinghoffer, 69, a retired wheelchair-bound businessman, and his wife Marilyn, were celebrating their 36th wedding anniversary with a cruise on the Achille Lauro. On October 7, 1985, four hijackers from the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the liner off Egypt as it was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said, Egypt. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they ordered the captain to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons, including the Lebanese murderer Samir Kuntar.
The next day, after being refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers singled out Klinghoffer, a Jew, for execution, shooting him in the forehead and chest as he sat in his wheelchair. They then forced the ship's barber and a waiter to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. Marilyn Klinghoffer, who did not witness the shooting, was told by the hijackers that he had been moved to the infirmary. She only learned the truth after the hijackers left the ship at Port Said. PLO Foreign Secretary Farouq Qaddumi said that perhaps the terminally ill Marilyn Klinghoffer had killed her husband for insurance money.<2>
Initially, the hijackers were granted safe passage to Tunisia, but U.S. President Ronald Reagan ordered a U.S. fighter plane to force the get-away plane to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy. After an extradition dispute Italian authorities arrested and later tried the fedayeen but let Abu Abbas, the Palestinian who had served as a mediator, fly to Yugoslavia.
Klinghoffer's body was found by the Syrians on October 14–15 and returned to the United States around October 20. Leon Klinghoffer was buried at Beth David Memorial Park in Kenilworth, New Jersey. Four months after her husband's murder, Marilyn Klinghoffer died of colon cancer. The Klinghoffers are survived by two daughters, Ilsa and Lisa Klinghoffer.
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methinks excess_3 is full of it, prove me wrong. No where in either do I see the word "Iraq", coming from, going to or based in.