Murder of a hostage; Sugar bucks the trend
Hostage was shot twice
The body washed ashore in Syria has been identified as that of Mr Leon Klinghoffer, 69, the New York passenger on the Italian liner, Achille Lauro, who was murdered during last week’s hijacking of the ship. Mr Klinghoffer had apparently been shot twice by his killers, Palestine Liberation Organisation terrorists, before his body was thrown into the sea together with his wheelchair to which he had been confined since suffering a stroke. A fellow passenger, Judge Stanley Kubacki from Philadelphia, said that a bartender had accidentally witnessed the shooting and described it as follows: “One of the terrorists shot the man in the chest. Then the other man with a moustache directed that he shoot Mr Klinghoffer again.” One of the Spanish passengers said that the hijackers had looked for an Israeli passenger. In fact there was an Israeli on board but he was in the ship’s hospital which the terrorists never visited.
Sweet news for Sugar
Bucking the home computer trend, Amstrad, the consumer electronics group headed by entrepreneur Alan Sugar, turned in a pre-tax profits increase of 122 per cent up from £5.7 million to £13.9 million for the year to end June 1985. While all about him seem to be falling victim to the collapse of the home computer market, Amstrad increased sales from £84,946 million to £136,061 million. Dividend is up 50 per cent to a total pay-out for the year of 0.942p a share.
Tory press
The Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, gave our foreign and diplomatic editor Joseph Finklestone a demonstration of her remarkable memory. Recalling the very first interview she gave him when she was Secretary of State for Education, he hesitated about the exact date. Mrs Thatcher responded immediately: “It was in 1973, of course!” Asked if she had seen the JC last week and the report of the interview she gave the newspaper, she remarked: “We get the Jewish Chronicle at 10 Downing Street. It is a very good newspaper. You really cannot know what is happening unless you get the JC.”