Achille Lauro hijacker dies in Iraq

Abul Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind of the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger ship in which an American tourist was killed, has died in US custody in Iraq.

Abbas’ small Palestine Liberation Front commandeered the Italian cruise ship, demanded the release of 50 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and threw an elderly wheelchair-bound Jewish American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, overboard after shooting him.