The Greek government’s decision to free a Palestinian terrorist whose extradition to Italy had been upheld by the Greek Supreme Court is having international repercussions.
The Foreign Ministry here expressed shock and is demanding explanations.
There were also expressions of outrage from Israel and from leaders of the Italian, Greek and American Jewish communities.
Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff of Rome indicated he would urge Jewish tourists from all over the world to boycott Greece.
Abdel Osama al-Zomar, the principal suspect in the Oct. 9, 1982, machine gun and grenade attack on the main synagogue in Rome that killed 2-year-old Stefano Tache and wounded 40 people, was “deported” by Greece Wednesday to a country of his choice, believed to be Libya.
In Athens, the Greek minister of justice, Vassillis Rotis, explained that the longstanding Italian request for extradition was denied because he considered Zomar’s alleged crime in Italy politically motivated, in the context of the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
The Central Jewish Board of Greece, the umbrella organization representing Greek Jewry, sent an angry letter to the prime minister Wednesday.
The letter charged that from now on, “Every Greek Jew’s life will be at the disposal of any terrorist who can kill them, individually or in groups — having the legal warrant of the justice minister.”
In Rome, the Italian Foreign Ministry asked Wednesday for “exhaustive clarification” from Greece when it summoned the Greek ambassador, Nicolais Athanassiou.
‘CVNICISM BORDERING ON DEPRAVITY’
In Washington, the U.S. State Department said it was “profoundly disturbed” by the Greek decision and “supports the Italian government’s call for full clarification from Greece.”
Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley also said that Greece’s “explanation that an armed attack on a synagogue and the murder of a 2-year-old child was ‘all in the domain of the struggle to regain a homeland’ ” was “deplorable.”
Oakley said the U.S. request for clarification was made both to the Greek Embassy here and in Athens.
The United States plans no further action in this case.
In Jerusalem, a Foreign Ministry spokesman denounced the Greek decision, expressing confidence that the international community, likewise, would express its condemnation.
In Los Angeles, the Simon Wiesenthal Center called on Secretary of State George Shultz to “order an immediate review as to the impact of this move on the safety of Americans traveling to Greece, at a time when that government has apparently given carte blanche to terrorists.”
Seymour Reich, international president of B’nai B’rith, and Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in New York, also condemned the Greek justice minister’s decision.
Reich said Rotis’ “new definition of ‘freedom fighting’ establishes new depths of cynicism bordering on depravity, Is the cold-blooded murder of an innocent child anywhere in the world, and far removed from the arena of conflict, now to be classified a heroic deed in the name of liberation?” he asked.
JTA correspondents Jean Cohen in Athens, Gil Sedan in Jerusalem and David Friedman in Washington contributed to this report.
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