Court Rules Klinghoffer Family Can Sue PLO over Achille Lauro

The Palestine Liberation Organization suffered a legal blow last week, when a U.S. court in New York said it had the right to rule who was responsible for tossing a crippled American man into the Mediterranean Sea in 1985.

Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound Jewish man from New York, was shot and thrown off the Achille Lauro cruise ship by members of the Palestine Liberation Front who had seized the cruise ship in the Mediterranean.

The front, a PLO constituent group headed by Mohammed (Abul) Abbas, has also been linked to a failed terrorist attack May 30 on beaches outside of Tel Aviv.

The June 7 ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan, marks the first time a federal court has accepted jurisdiction to rule on international terrorism incidents. A trial date has not been set.

Previously, a U.S. court in the District of Columbia had dismissed a suit by Americans against Libya and the PLO for damages resulting from an attack on an Israeli bus.

U.S. courts rarely consider claims against foreign governments, but in the PLO’s case, Stanton rejected the legal existence of the PLO’s proclaimed “State of Palestine.”

The U.S. definition of what constitutes a foreign country, Stanton ruled, “does not fit the PLO closely enough to Justify treating it as a foreign sovereign or state in this litigation.

“Rather, as its name indicates, the PLO is an organization. It is composed of individuals without a legal identity apart from its membership, formed for specific objectives.”

ARAFAT MAY BE PUT ON STAND

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who represented the PLO, had asserted that it was immune because of its relationship to the United Nations, where it has the status of permanent observer.

The State Department was not involved in the case. But one department official said, “We’ve always maintained that the PLO had extremely limited privileges and immunities” in the United States, and only for “official” activities at the United Nations.

The Achille Lauro suit was filed in November 1985 by Klinghoffer’s widow, Marilyn, who died of cancer in 1986.

Lisa Arbitter, one of Klinghoffer’s two daughters, said she was “very gratified that finally the PLO will be held responsible and accountable for my father.”

Jay Fischer, the New York lawyer who handled the Klinghoffer suit, said the ruling “significantly demeans” the PLO. The next step will be taking depositions of people “who can shed any light on the PLO,” he said.

Fischer said he may try to have Abbas or PLO leader Yasir Arafat take the stand at the trial if he thinks they have any “relevant” information.

Abbas is wanted by the United States for the Achille Lauro hijacking and the murder of Klinghoffer.

But for Arafat to gain entry to the United States, the Bush administration would have to grant him a visa.