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An El Al Boeing 747-200.

The Hindawi affair was the attempted bombing of an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv in April 1986 and its international repercussions.

On the morning of April 17, 1986, at Heathrow Airport in London, Israeli security guards working for El Al airlines found semtex explosives in a bag of Anne Mary Murphy, a pregnant Irishwoman attempting to fly on a flight with 375 fellow passengers to Tel Aviv. In addition, a functioning calculator in the bag was found to be a timed triggering device. She was apparently unaware of the contents, and had been given the bag by her fiancé, Nezar Hindawi, a Jordanian. He had sent her on the flight for the purpose of meeting his parents before marriage. A manhunt ensued, resulting in Hindawi's arrest the following day after he surrendered to police. Hindawi was found guilty by a British court in the Old Bailey and received 45 years imprisonment, believed to be the longest determinate, or fixed, criminal sentence in British history[1] (but see also life sentence).

Hindawi subsequently appealed the sentence of 45 years. His appeal was rejected by the Lord Chief Justice who noted that "Put briefly, this was about as foul and as horrible a crime as could possibly be imagined. It is no thanks to this applicant that his plot did not succeed in destroying 360 or 370 lives in the effort to promote one side of a political dispute by terrorism. In the judgment of this Court the sentence of 45 years' imprisonment was not a day too long. This application is refused."^{[citation needed]}

Background

At the time Murphy met Hindawi she worked as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane in London. When she became pregnant with his child, Hindawi convinced her that they should go to Israel in order to get married. He also insisted that she should go on ahead since, as an Arab, it would take longer for him to obtain a visa. Unknown to Murphy, he intended her to take an explosives-laden bag on board an El Al flight from Heathrow Airport to Tel Aviv on April 17, 1986. He escorted her to the airport and instructed her not to mention his name, since Israeli security would interrogate her about their relationship.

During Hindawi's subsequent interrogations and trial he described two conflicting stories leading up to the incident. In the first, Hindawi claimed to have arranged the plot with high-ranking officers in Syrian Air Force intelligence a year earlier in Damascus, where he was given Syrian papers and instructions for operating the explosives. He supposedly conducted a training run back in England before returning again to Syria for final details and preparation. As for the explosives themselves, Hindawi said that they were delivered to him in the Royal Garden Hotel in London on April 5, less than two weeks prior to the attempted bombing. This story is supported by the fact that Hindawi first sought refuge in the Syrian embassy after he had learned of the failed bombing, and Syrian officials were in the process of altering his appearance before he fled again, only to surrender to police. Also, British intelligence had previously intercepted Syrian communications with Hindawi's name, Hindawi was using genuine Syrian documents although he was not Syrian, and Hindawi's original escape plan involved leaving England with Syrian agents working on Syrian Arab Airlines.

In attempting to construct a credible defence for his client, Hindawi's legal counsel suggested an alternative interpretation of events during the trial, when he alleged that his client was not working for the Syrians after all, but was being manipulated by Israeli intelligence, which wished to damage and embarrass the Syrian government. The jury was unconvinced by this version of events, and subsequent appeal judges have dismissed such interpretations as entirely lacking in evidence. There is a broad consensus in the intelligence community that such an interpretation is highly unlikely, at best.

Repercussions

After the court found Hindawi guilty, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher broke off diplomatic relations with Syria. Following this the United States and Canada recalled their ambassadors from Syria. The European Community also imposed minor sanctions.

Aftermath

In April 2001 Nizar Hindawi became eligible for parole, but his right of appeal was denied by Home Secretary David Blunkett, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal [2].

Cultural References

Simon, one of the main characters in Atom Egoyan's 2008 film Adoration, claims that his father planted a bomb in his pregnant wife's luggage before she flew to Israel.

See also

• State-sponsored terrorism
• Arab-Israeli conflict

References

• Seale, Patrick. Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988. ISBN 0-520-06976-5, 475-482 p.
• Black, Ian. Morris, Benny. Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services. New York: Grove Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8021-1159-9, 433-437 p.
• "El Al bomber too dangerous to release, court rules" by Jenny Booth, Times Online
• "Terrorism: The Syrian Connection" by Daniel Pipes, originally published in The National Interest, Spring 1989.

External links

• Anne-Marie Murphy Case (1986) by the Shin Bet

← 1985 Aviation accidents and incidents in 1986 1987→ Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (January 28) — Mexicana Flight 940 (March 31) — TWA Flight 840 (April 2) — Hindawi affair (April 17) — Air Lanka Flight 512 (May 3) — Aeroméxico Flight 498 (August 31) — Pan Am Flight 73 (September 5) — Mozambican Tupolev Tu-134 crash (October 19) — British International Helicopters Chinook crash (November 6) — Iraqi Airways Flight 163 (December 25) Bold blue indicates incidents resulting at least 50 deaths — Red indicates the deadliest incident in 1986

Coordinates: 51°28′19″N 0°26′58″W / 51.47194°N 0.44944°W / 51.47194; -0.44944