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Anatomy of a Case: Flight 847

TWA Flight 847 was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome and forced to land in Beirut, Lebanon, where the hijackers held the plane for 17 days. They demanded the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as the release of 700 fellow Shiite Muslim prisoners held in Israeli prisons and in prisons in southern Lebanon run by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army. When these demands weren't met, hostage Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. U.S. sources implicated Hezbollah.

In what was widely perceived as an implicit, never explicit, quid pro quo, the hostages started being released by the hijackers, followed some days after by Israel starting to free some of its hundreds of Shiite prisoners. At the time, U.S. officials denied there was a deal and said Israel had already committed to releasing the prisoners. Imad Mughniyah, a senior officer with Hezbollah, was secretly indicted for the TWA hijacking in 1987, along with three others. One of those indicted, Mohammed Ali Hamadei, was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1989 he was convicted in a German court and sentenced to life in prison.

While government officials wrangle with terrorism and how to combat it, the real victims are often left with little or no recourse for the fear, anxiety and depression that they are left to deal with. That is where our law firm came in.