BARGAIN WITH TERRORIST, JUST DON'T KEEP YOUR END OF THE DEAL:

Germany's `bargaining chips' for Arad - Hezbollah operatives and Iranian agents (Aluf Benn, January 27, 2004, Ha'aretz)

The "bargaining chips" who are slated for release from European prisons, in exchange for disclosure about the fate of missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad, are Hezbollah operatives and Iranian agents who were involved in international terror attacks. One of them was convicted of murdering an American naval officer; he took orders from Imad Mughniyeh, who coordinates international terror strikes for Hezbollah. In exchange for the return of Arad or his remains to Israel, the German government is prepared to release two "bargaining chips," terrorists who murdered Kurdish opponents of Iran's regime in Berlin in autumn 1992. These assassinations, which are known as the "Mykonos Affair (after the Berlin restaurant where the attack took place)," seriously damaged relations between Germany and Iran. The German court which convicted the assassins ruled that the murders were authorized by top spiritual and political figures in Tehran. [...]

Germany has promised to release another "bargaining chip," Lebanese national Muhammad Ali Hamadi, a Hezbollah operative who is serving a life sentence for the murder of American navy diver Robbie Stethem, from Waldorf, Maryland, in Beirut in June 1985. Stethem was a passenger aboard a TWA plane that was hijacked in Athens; he was tortured and murdered in Beirut's airport. Hamadi was arrested two years later in Germany, while trying to smuggle explosives. An indictment was issued against Mughniyeh as well for the Stethem murder; and the U.S. government offered a $25 million reward to anyone responsible for the capture of the Hezbollah terror mastermind.

When Mr. Hamadi is released there should be a Predator waiting for him.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2004 9:12 PM