Assassination attempt in Kloten

When attack in Kloten was born on 18 February 1969 at the Zurich Airport an El-Al AIRPLANE four Fatah - assassins fired, and the co-pilot and a bomber died. The attack can be classified into the terrorist attacks of the PLO by the PFLP .

procedure

On February 18, 1969, four activists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Jordanian Abdel Mohsen Hassan (32 years old), Amina Dahbour (26 years old), Ibrahim Youssef and Mohamed Abu al-Heiga, attacked the with automatic weapons Apron of Zurich Airport. They then fired a Boeing 720 B of the El-Al . Mordechai Rachamim , an employee of the Israeli secret service , fired back with the pistol and killed Abdel Mohsen Hassan. The three other assassins, two men and one woman, were arrested.

The assassins were then brought to trial before a jury in Winterthur. The three assassins were each sentenced to twelve years imprisonment. At the same trial, Rachamim was routinely charged with homicide and acquitted.

They were cleared a year later by a coordinated action by the PFLP. The PFLP hijacked one aircraft each from Swissair , the British BOAC and the American TWA and forced them to land in the Jordanian desert in Zarqa in order to then blow up the planes.

See also

• Palestinian terrorist attacks in 1969 and 1970 against Switzerland

Documentation

• Fritz Muri : When Switzerland held its breath: In the crosshairs of terror. ( Memento from January 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: DOK , Schweizer Fernsehen , August 2, 2011; ( Online video, 37 minutes )

Web links

• Four-part series Arab Terror in Switzerland by Marcel Gyr in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung :
  • A dark suspicion. December 27, 2014 (1/4)
  • With the Royal Air Force to freedom. December 29, 2014 (2/4)
  • The man behind the assassin. December 30, 2014 (3/4)
  • When the world held its breath December 31, 2014 (4/4)
• Hannah Einhaus: Assassination attempt at Zurich Airport in 1969: "The third man held the gun in his hand and wanted to turn around, but I was faster". In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung online, February 16, 2019.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Benno Gasser: The day on which the terror came to Switzerland. Tages-Anzeiger , February 17, 2009.
2. ↑ Free hand. Der Spiegel , February 24, 1969.
3. ↑ Gerhard Mauz : Before the salad is served. Spiegel reporter Gerhard Mauz in the El-Al trial in Winterthur. Der Spiegel, December 29, 1969.
4. ^ Hijacking a Swissair DC-8 to Zerqa in: NZZ Online from September 5, 2005.