Summary

TAPE: EF04/0289 IN_TIME: 10:18:45:15 DURATION: 00:03:35:23 SOURCES: APTN RESTRICTIONS: APTN Clients Only DATELINE: Various - 10 March 2004/File ABBAS WRAP3 100304N SHOTLIST: (First Run 1200 F-L-A-S-H March 10, 2004) Ein El Helweh, Lebanon - 10 March 2004 1. Palestinian militants putting Palestinian flags with pictures of Abul Abbas in Ein El Helweh Palestinian camp in Sidon 2. Palestinian militants entering to present condolences 3. Armed Palestinian wearing a picture of Abul Abbas on a t-shirt (First Run 0200 Europe Overnight March 10, 2004) FILE: Gaza - 20 April 1996 4. Various shots of Abul Abbas at press conference after being allowed into Gaza for the first time to attend a Palestinian National Council meeting FILE: Egypt - Date unknown 5. Various shots of Achille Lauro cruise liner in port FILE: USA - Date unknown 6. Close up still photograph of Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer (First Run 1200 F-L-A-S-H March 10, 2004) Beirut, Lebanon - 10 March 2004 7. Building in Beirut where wife of Abul Abbas lives 8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Rim El Nemer, wife of Abul Abbas: "The Americans are the ones directly responsible for him. Abul Abbas was detained in their prisons they were responsible for him morally and physically. He was with them and they are the only ones who know how Abul Abbas died." 9. Cutaway of Palestinian and Lebanese flags 10. Rim and her son Ali seated (First Run 1800 gmt Europe Evening March 10, 2004) Ramallah, West Bank 10 March 2003 11. Exterior of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat''s head quarters 12. Arafat with aides at the entrance to his compound 13. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Yasser Arafat, Palestinian President: "The late Abbas was a member of the PLO executive committee and was a leader of the PLF faction, may he go to heaven with the rest of our martyrs." 14. End shot of Arafat walking into compound (First Run 1200 F-L-A-S-H March 10, 2004) Jerusalem - 10 March 2004 15. Set up shot of Raanan Gissin 16. SOUNDBITE (English) Raanan Gissin, advisor to Israeli Prime Minister: "I think we''ve come to a full circle. The man who began his operation in Iraq as a proxy of Saddam Hussein, the man who conducted and perpetrated the murder of Smadar Haran''s family in 1979, the Achille Lauro in ''86 -- the American citizen he killed, he was on the most wanted list of the United States -- find his death in a prison cell in Iraq under the control of American forces. This is what may be called as poetic justice." Baghdad - 10 March 2004 17. Car driving along street in upscale al-Qarrada neighbourhood of Baghdad where Abul Abbas used to live 18. Various shots of street and house that Abbas used to occupy (First Run 1900 gmt Latin America) 19. Various exteriors shots of Palestinian Liberation Front club 20. Tilt up from inscription announcing Abbas as martyr to his portrait draped with a black ribbon 21. Various shots of mourners gathered inside STORYLINE: Palestinians around the world have been mourning Abul Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind of the hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger ship, who died in US custody in Baghdad from natural causes. Abbas, whose given name was Mohammed Abbas, was captured in Iraq in April 2003 by US forces nearly two decades after being convicted in absentia by an Italian court and sentenced to life in prison for the hijacking, which left a wheelchair-bound American tourist dead. The Achille Lauro ship, was commandeered by Abbas'' small Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) in 1985 to demand the release of 50 Palestinian prisoners. Militants threw threw an elderly Jewish American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, overboard after shooting him. In Washington, a US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Abbas had died recently of natural causes. There was an attempt to revive him, but it wasn''t successful. Abbas'' wife and son, who live in Lebanon, told APTN on Wednesday that they held the United States responsible for his death. At the Ein El Helweh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Abbas'' supporters paraded and placed flags in his memory. Mourners also gathered at in Baghdad where local members of the Palestinian Front prayed in a room adorned with pictures Abbas. Palestinian officials hailed him as a hero and said the US arrest of Abbas in Iraq was contrary to agreements by the United States not to prosecute Palestinian militants who had acted against Israel before interim peace accords were signed in the 1990s. On Wednesday, Arafat said Abbas was a martyr for the Palestinian cause, while an Israeli government spokesman reacted to the news of Abbas'' death by saying it was "poetic justice" that he had died in US custody. Abbas had been imprisoned since last April when US commandos caught him in a raid on the southern outskirts of Baghdad. He had been convicted in absentia in an Italian court for the 1985 hijacking and sentenced to life in prison in 1986, but never served any time. His arrest in Baghdad came 18 years after seizing the Achille Lauro off Port Said, Egypt. In Israel, Abbas was infamous for planning a terrorist attack in 1979 that killed the husband and two daughters of an Israeli woman, Smadar Haran, at Nahariya in northern Israel, not far from the Lebanese border. Abbas, aged 55, had been a member of the PLO''s executive committee, but left in 1991. His PLF faction has very few followers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to Israel''s security service, the PLF has sent some members to Iraq for military training. In April 1996, Abbas visited Gaza for the first time, as part of the amnesty offered by Israel. During that visit he apologized for the killing of Leon Klinghoffer, the American tourist from the Achille Lauro. In 1998, he returned to attend a session of the Palestine National Council, the Palestinians'' parliament-in-exile, for a crucial vote on abrogating chapters of the PLO founding charter calling for Israel''s destruction. In the end, Abul Abbas did not participate in the vote. At that time, Israeli attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein said Abul Abbas did not pose a threat to Israeli security, and that it would be unreasonable to prosecute him for acts committed before 1993.