The hijackers wanted blood.
And when they saw U.S. navy diver Robert Dean Stethem’s military identification, they decided he would be the sacrificial lamb.
After the young sailor was beaten beyond recognition and shot in the head, his battered corpse was dumped onto the tarmac of the Beirut airport in June, 1985.
The shocking images and video shocked the world.
Now, after 34 years, Greek cops have arrested a 65-year-old Lebanese man suspected of involvement in the hijacking of a Trans World Airlines (TWA) plane during which Stethem was murdered.
Detectives say the suspect — identified by Lebanon’s foreign ministry as Mohammad Saleh — was nabbed Thursday on the island of Mykylos during a routine security check.
He had been on a cruise.
Saleh is also wanted by German authorities for his role in a 1987 kidnapping that allowed him to go free in exchange for the release of two German citizens.
The TWA 847 flight from Cairo to San Diego with several en-route stops was hijacked shortly after taking off from Athens in 1985.
The hijackers demanded the release of Shi’ite Muslim prisoners from Israeli custody.
The passengers and crew endured a three-day intercontinental ordeal. Some passengers were beaten and Stethem was murdered.
Dozens of passengers were held hostage over the following two weeks.\
“The suspect denies any involvement in the hijacking,” police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos told CNN.
“He has been remanded in custody on the island of Syros and is to be transferred to a high-security prison in Athens.”
The Hezbollah-linked terrorists held some of the passengers for more than two weeks.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
