October 7 1985

Four PLF gunmen hijack the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro (carrying 97 passengers and 450 crew) off the Egyptian coast and demand the release of 50 Palestinians held by Israel. Before departing Alexandria en route to Ashdod, 651 passengers went ashore to tour the pyramids and rendezvous with the ship in Port Said. The hijackers, planning an attack on Israel from Ashdod, are caught cleaning firearms in their cabin and hijack the ship instead. They order Captain Gerardo de Rosa to sail to Tartus, Syria. An SOS is picked up in Sweden. The ship is turned away from Tartus on the 8th. At about 3pm, a hijacker shoots and kills wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, 69, an American Jew (on the cruise for his wife Marilyn’s 58th birthday, on the 6th, and their 36th wedding anniversary), and forces two crew members to throw him and his wheelchair overboard. The hijackers leave the ship in Port Said on the 9th and De Rosa breaks the news of the murder. The hijackers are arrested on the 10th after the EgyptAir Boeing 737 taking them from Cairo to Tunisia is intercepted by US Tomcats and “escorted” to Nato Base Sigonella in Sicily. On the 15th, the US confirms that Klinghoffer’s body had been found on the Tunisian coast. The picture is the last of him and Marilyn, front, on the ship