Render Mercies
A Lebanese man who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and the killing of a U.S. Navy diver has returned to Lebanon after German authorities paroled him, a Lebanese security official and the Hezbollah guerrilla group said Tuesday.
Some people wonder about the timing, too.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Martin Jaeger, said there was no connection between his release and that of Susanne Osthoff, a German woman who was released on the weekend after spending more than three weeks as a hostage in Iraq.
So who was this guy?
Hamadi was arrested at the Frankfurt airport on Jan. 13, 1987 for involvement in the hijacking, after customs officials discovered liquid explosives in his luggage. TWA flight 847 from Athens to Rome was hijacked to Beirut, where the hijackers shot U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, 23, of Waldorf, Maryland, and dumped his body on the tarmac.
Oh, yeah. Nice fellow. I see no evidence presented in any of the stories about a rehabilitation, or remorse. Some gleam of awareness that wasn't there in this man'e eyes the last time he came up for parole. I wonder if he wrote any children's books while in jail? Like, "The Little Engine That Could Drive the Jews into the Sea" or maybe "Pat the Bunny's Detonator Device and Slay the Infidel American Pigs."
At the time, the U.S. authorities requested Hamadi's extradition so he could stand trial in the United States,
... which would have been nice, since he killed an American, after all,
... but the Germans, who have no death penalty, insisted on prosecuting Hamadi.
So they could let him go later, apparently, at a time when it was convenient for Germany to do so.
On Tuesday, German Justice Ministry spokeswoman Eva Schmierer said that Germany had not received any request from the United States for Hamadi's extradition.
In the current climate, I hope to god that's true and not just another Washington snafu. Hamadi would have the world's best legal team protecting him over here from the big, bad Bush Administration.
This way, he'll get to live the rest of his, hopefully short and unhappy, life looking over his shoulder for that Hellfire missile with his name on it, wondering of every mosquito buzz he hears is really a Predator's engine. This is a case for extraordinary rendition. Render him unto Allah.
