Abu Nidal group sentenced in France for 1988 attack, but the defendants remain at large
Rescue teams attend the site of the stricken cruise ship Costa Concordia offshore from the island of Giglio.
A French court sentenced three terrorism suspects to 30 years in prison for their involvement in a 1988 attack, BBC News reported. However, the defendants were sentenced in absentia, meaning that they are still at large. The suspects may not even be alive anymore.
France issued a warrant for their arrest today, the Associated Press reported. Under French law, the court can investigate cases originating outside of France and try suspects if French citizens were involved. Several of the victims in the attack were French citizens, RFI reported.
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Adnan Sojod, Samir Khaidir and Abdul Hamid Amoud were convicted in Paris today for firing at people on a Greek cruise liner in the City of Poros. Nine people on the cruise had died in the 1988 attack. One of the gunmen also threw a grenade on the ship, RFI reported.
Prosecutors said that the three men were members of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, a Palestinian extremist group linked to the radical Abu Nidal, the AP said.
Abu Nidal was a guerrilla leader from Palestine who had been blamed for attacks in more than 20 countries, CNN reported. Nidal had tried twice to have late Palestinian leader Yasser Aarafat assassinated and was regarded by much of the Palestinian community, as well as the rest of the world, as a terrorist, the BBC said. He committed suicide in 2002.
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