Lebanon has criticised US demands that it hand over a hijacker released by Germany after nearly 19 years in jail for murdering an American.
| The sailor he killed is going to be dead forever... |
"Originally they (the US government) could have requested that Germany hand him over. Why are they asking us?" Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Wednesday. "He served his sentence in Germany and there are measures that will be completed in Lebanon ... . Why are they asking us now?"
| Because he killed one of our people... |
Siniora also said Lebanon's judicial authorities were looking at the legal status of Mohammad Ali Hammadi, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a German court for his role in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner and the murder of US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in Beirut. Hammadi was freed quietly last week and immediately returned to Lebanon despite objections from Washington, which has vowed to bring him from Lebanon to face a US judge. Siniora said Hammadi had already served a term close to what he would have faced if he had been convicted in Lebanon. He also said the judiciary was exploring whether his crime was covered by a general amnesty after Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. A US official said on Tuesday Hammadi was in temporary custody in Lebanon but Lebanese judicial sources said on Wednesday they were not aware he was being held. |