Israel Asks Switzerland to Release Security Guard Who Fired at Arab Terrorists

Diplomatic sources in Bern said today the Israel Embassy has asked Swiss authorities to release 23-year-old Mordechai Rahamim, the El Al security guard who fired on four Arab terrorists who attacked the airliner. He killed one.

Mr. Rahamim, a former Israeli paratrooper, was being held in a Zurich jail while legal authorities were deciding whether to bring charges against him and, if so, on what grounds. He was visited yesterday by Israeli Consul General Moshe Gur-On. He has refused to tell his Swiss interrogators anything except that he fired in “self-defense.”

Mr. Rahamim fired from a window of the Boeing 720B jet–and from the ground–as it was sprayed with machine-gun fire by the Arab terrorists. Dr. Jurg Rehberg, the Zurich district prosecutor, who is in charge of the case, disclosed that the young Israeli may face a murder charge if it turned out that he fired after the plane’s assailants ceased firing. Homicide in Switzerland carries a penalty of five years imprisonment if accompanied by extenuating circumstances, or five to 10 years if no such circumstances are found. He could also be charged with assassination without premeditation which carries a penalty of from five years to life imprisonment. In practical terms, this usually means 25 years in jail, sources said.

The three Arab terrorists, one of them a woman, also face charges of attempted murder which carry a possible life sentence. Like Mr. Rahamim, they are being held in separate cells. They may also be charged with endangering air traffic and illegal use of explosives. JTA learned today that the three claimed that they had no intention of taking lives but were under instructions to force the evacuation of the El Al jet and blow it up. But Mr. Rehberg was reportedly not convinced by this claim. He told the press yesterday that the terrorists had come to Zurich from Damascus after attending a special training camp in Syria where they received instructions in attack and the use of explosives. They admitted that they belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and said they wanted to fight “the belligerent activities of El Al” and to “arouse world opinion against the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”

(In Israel today, Mr. Rahamim was being hailed as a hero. Born in Iraq in 1946, he came to Israel with his parents. He was educated at the Mikve Israel agricultural school near Tel Aviv, is a student at Tel Aviv University and served with the paratroops during the Six-Day War. He was cited for bravery.)

Mr. Rahamim described himself to Swiss authorities as a “civil servant.” He was a member of the special security squad which El Al recruited following the hijacking of one of a Rome-to-Tel Aviv aircraft by Palestinian terrorists last summer. The fact that he was armed with only a pistol indicated that he was hired to guard against another hijacking attempt rather than an armed attack from outside the plane.

(It was reported in Washington today that the United States Government was considering the possibility of using Marines to guard against airliner-hijacking. The study is under way in the Defense Department.)