Two young Palestinians were sentenced to death in criminal court today for the machine-gun and grenade massacre at Athens Airport last Aug. Shafik Arid and Talal Khantouran, both 22, admitted in court yesterday that they staged the attack in which five people were killed and 55 wounded. They claimed it was a “political act” aimed at “liberating” Palestine and preventing Jewish immigrants from going to Israel.
The death sentence was pronounced at the end of the second day of the trial during which 13 witnesses testified for the prosecution. There were none for the defense. The pair, who claimed to be members of the Black September gang, told the court they had “carried out a political act in conformity with political orders” because they were “determined to liberate Palestine at any cost and spare no efforts to achieve this aim.”
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