Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

148 • DIPLOMATIC INVIOLABILITY1981. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1985, sections 2001and 2002, amended chapter 55 of Title 18 to make any kidnappingwith an international dimension involving threats against life, limb,or liberty a crime subject to federal jurisdiction.In essence this allowed the United States to claim the right toarrest anyone involved in taking any U.S. citizen hostage, whetheror not that victim was a U.S. diplomat, or whether the crime tookplace within or outside the borders of the United States, and allowedU.S. authorities to arrest suspects even outside of the borders of theUnited States. Ordinarily the United States would try to demandthe extradition of such suspects, but the propensity of terrorists toseek sanctuary in nations not disposed to extraditing them to U.S.authorities made this extreme assertion of extraterritorial jurisdictionseem necessary even though such rendition may appear to violatethe sovereignty of such nations.The other issue involves cases of diplomatic immunity in whichdiplomatic status is abused to shelter terrorist agents from the lawor else abuse of this status by the diplomats themselves to carry outterrorist activities. Following the end of the October 1985 hijackingof the Achille Lauro, the four Palestine Liberation Front (PLF)hijackers, who had been joined by PLF leader Abu Abbas, had leftEgypt on an Egyptian airliner, intending to fly to Tunisia, when U.S.fighter jets forced the plane to land at the North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationAir Force base at Sigonella in Sicily. Over U.S. objections,the Italian authorities allowed Abu Abbas to go free on the groundsthat he had an Iraqi diplomatic passport. Similarly, Libyan diplomatsabused their status on 17 April 1984 when they opened fire on Libyanprotesters in St. James Square, London, killing one British policeofficer. In such cases the national government whose territory andcitizens have been attacked has the option of declaring the diplomatspersona non grata, requiring them to leave, or even of downgradingdiplomatic ties with the other nation or subjecting it to economicboycott and sanctions. Group of Eight counterterrorism cooperation,beginning with its London declaration of 1984 and the Tokyodeclaration of 1986, has coordinated measures among the memberstates to punish nations that abuse diplomatic immunity, in particularLibya, by agreeing not to admit any diplomat declared persona nongrata in any one of their nations and also to embargo the sales of armsto nations abusing diplomatic immunity.