Djibouti attack in 1987
The attack in Djibouti was an attack carried out in Djibouti on behalf of Libya by a Palestinian terrorist organization . In the terrorist attack on March 18, 1987, 13 people were murdered and 41 others injured.
Since four German marine scientists were killed and others injured in the attack, German authorities also investigated. The assassin's helpers were never prosecuted.
background
The attack was carried out by the Palestinian terrorist group PPLF , a terrorist organization that emerged from the PLO and had existed since around the end of the 1970s. According to current knowledge, the attack was initiated as state terrorism by Libya's dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi .
There were political efforts to unite the states of the Sahel zone economically. From March 16 to 18, 1987, the annual conference of the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) met in Djibouti, which was also a donor conference . Representatives of the World Bank took part as well as European donor countries, who wanted to secure their influence in the Sahel zone. In addition to the fight against drought and drought, they were also interested in the oil deposits there .
Gaddafi wanted a North African Union under his leadership and was not interested in greater influence by France or other European countries.
attack
In the early morning of March 18, 1987, a group of young German marine biologists from the University of Kiel arrived in Djibouti . A three-month expedition was planned on the German research vessel Meteor through the Gulf of Aden with the goal of the Indian Ocean . It was the brand new ship's first major international voyage. After they moved into their bunks , there was still time to go ashore . Neither the captain of Meteor 3 nor the young scientists knew of the increased security precautions due to the first international conference of the IGADD states.
The assassin Adouani Hassan ben Hamouda, a Tunisian , took a taxi to the crime scene with the bomb. Ben Hamouda deposited a briefcase with the explosive device in the terrace cafe “Historil”. German scientists from the Meteor expedition were also in the cafe. The bomb exploded at 7:13 p.m. local time. The pillar next to the briefcase burst, a porch collapsed. A total of 13 people were killed and 41 injured in the attack. The students Annette Barthelt, Marco Buchalla and Daniel Reinschmidt were dead on the spot.
Two days after the attack, the German air force flew the bodies and injured people. A little later, the fisheries biologist Hans-Wilhelm "Harvey" Halbeisen succumbed to his serious injuries in the Bonn University Hospital . Four young Kiel marine researchers survived seriously injured with burns, amputations, broken bones, damaged eardrums and internal injuries. The Bonn public prosecutor's office took up the investigation (Az. 90 Js 259/87).
Investigations
Adouani Hassan ben Hamouda was caught on March 19, 1987. In 1991 he was sentenced to death in Djibouti. This made him the first person to be sentenced to death since the independence of the state of Djibouti in 1977. According to a spokeswoman for the Bonn public prosecutor's office in 1993, he appealed on appeal and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was part of the Palestinian People's Liberation Front (PLF).
After a few months of investigative work headed by Djibouti's attorney general, the Frenchman Lepelley, it was clear to the authorities that another PLF member and a South Yemeni intelligence officer had come to Djibouti to support Hamouda. The FR author Karl-Heinz Krumm quotes the then German ambassador Reiners in the dwarf state of Djibouti in a report in 1988: The supporters were "equipped with diplomatic passports" and "known by name".
In a telegram from the Federal Intelligence Service in July 1987 it was stated that “ partner services assert with certainty” that Gaddafi had given the order as “revenge for the French stance in the Libyan-Chad border war ”. The German embassy in Yemen also reported to the Foreign Office in 1988 that the investigators on the spot assumed that “the client was clearly Libya”. The Palestinian terror group is "known to be exclusively in Libyan wages".
In 1988, Der Spiegel pointed out that German politicians had no interest in clearing up the case. The investigative authorities in the Federal Republic showed no hurry to get hold of the terrorists. The Federal Prosecutor General at the time, Kurt Rebmann , kept constructing new obstacles to persecution, and public prosecutors remained largely inactive. For 18 months, Gerd Reinschmidt, father of one of the killed researchers, has been claiming without contradiction: "Kohl and Genscher cuddle before Gaddafi". The mirror. Der Spiegel suspects the motive is that the German government did not want to strain diplomatic relations with Libya and Djibouti.
aftermath
The Annette Barthelt Foundation eV was founded in Kiel after the attack from the environment of the IFM-Geomar .
A case by the Bonn public prosecutor's office was still bogging down in 2011: a German arrest warrant against the assassin Adouani had existed for 22 years.
The Tunisian assassin was imprisoned from 1987 to 2000 and was then pardoned. While still in custody, Adouani wrote a letter to the German in 1999: He prayed to the Almighty that the surviving and severely impaired victim Böckel would keep "serenity" and life would fill him with "joy, happiness and peace".
In March 2004 the then Federal President Johannes Rau wanted to pay a visit to Djibouti, but refrained from doing so due to the potential risk of an attack.
In 2007, a French judge issued an arrest warrant for Adouani for another alleged murder in the context of terrorist activities.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Uwe Goerlitz: Research trip to death. ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. GeoWis online magazine, accessed December 25, 2015.
- ↑ Amnesty International Report 1994 - Djibouti , accessed December 25, 2015.
- ↑ Karl-Heinz Krumm: The masterminds are not mentioned. In: Frankfurter Rundschau of March 19, 1988.
- ↑ Sven Becker, Holger Stark: The forgotten victims. Spiegel Online from October 1, 2011, accessed December 25, 2015.
- ↑ Cuddling to Gaddafi. In: Der Spiegel , 7/1989, p. 85 ( online ).
Coordinates: 11 ° 35 ′ 42.9 ″ N , 43 ° 8 ′ 46.7 ″ E