Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

QADDAFI, MUAMMAR • 555Secretariat siege in December 1975, allowing them to deposit theirransom in Libya and later permitting them sanctuary there. TheVenezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, also called Carlos theJackal, who led the OPEC siege, disappeared from public view atthat time and was not captured until 1994.In 1975 Qaddafi broke off relations with the Palestine LiberationOrganization and began to back the renegade Fatah RevolutionaryCouncil led by Abu Nidal. Consequently Qaddafi was suspectedof complicity in the 23 November 1985 hijacking of an EgyptAirairplane to Luqua airport in Malta and the massacre of holiday travelersat Rome and Vienna airports on 27 December 1985. Libya alsosupported the Irish Republican Army with shipments of arms andSemtex explosives, revealed by the interception in 1987 of a merchantvessel, the MV Eskund, destined for Ireland.Qaddafi clashed with the United States over the question of Libyanclaims to sovereignty over the Gulf of Sidra. U.S. naval exercises inthose waters led to confrontations between Libyan and U.S. forces inMarch 1986. The United States held Libya responsible for the 5 April1986 bombing of the La Belle Discothèque in West Berlin, a favoritenightclub of U.S. service members, in which three people were killedand 230 others injured. In retaliation, the U.S. Air Force conductedbombing raids on Benghazi and Tripoli, striking one of Qaddafi’sresidences and apparently killing one of his foster children. Qaddafibecame uncharacteristically reticent after this incident but did notrenounce sponsorship of terrorism. On 14 April 1988 the Jihad Brigades,a unit of the Japanese Red Army acting under Libyan sponsorship,carried out a retaliatory bombing against a United ServiceOrganizations (USO) club in Naples, killing five patrons.On 14 November 1991 the United States issued indictments againstLibyan officials, charging the Libyan government with sponsorshipof the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing on 21 December 1988, and theU.S. State Department published evidence in its April 1992 report onglobal terrorism linking the Qaddafi regime with the bombing. On 30April 1992 Qaddafi announced he would refuse to extradite the twoofficials named in those indictments. On 5 April 1999 both suspectswere finally handed over, through United Nations mediators, to Scottishpolice in Camp Zeist in the Netherlands and their trial began on 3May 2000, leading to the acquittal of one and conviction of the otheron 31 January 2001.