United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim offered his intervention today in the case of the Japanese Airlines jet hijacked Friday and landed with 143 persons on board in Dubai. Waldheim met this morning with the Japanese United Nations Ambassador M. Poru Nakagawa and asked him to convey his deep concern to the government of Japan.
At the same time here the UN ad hoc committee on international terrorism reconvened this morning and adjourned after 30 minutes without once referring to this latest act of terrorism. Observers at the UN expressed surprise at the silence of the committee on this matter. The committee is scheduled to reconvene later this afternoon.
Waldheim told the Japanese Ambassador that he is willing to help if he is asked to. A UN spokesman said that Waldheim “deeply deplores these acts of violence which threaten the lives of innocent people.” Over the weekend the Secretary General received a cable from the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirate where the plane was landed. The foreign minister informed Waldheim of the situation but did not ask him to take any action.
News reports reaching here this morning said that the hijackers had received a message from West Germany this morning telling them to kill the passengers immediately or release them without further delay. The message was relayed to the hijackers by the control tower after the hijackers warned the tower not to “miss one word.” Of the original 145 persons aboard the hijacked plane, one of the passengers, a woman hijacker, was killed when a grenade she was carrying in her belt went off. The explosion injured the plane’s purser, Yoshihisa Miyashita. He was released by the terrorists.
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