Terrorism a Tale of Two Bombings

By Kenneth M. Pierce.

Karl Heinz Beckurts knew that the terrorist Red Army Faction had marked him for death. The director of research and technology at Siemens, the West German electronics giant, he had hired security guards, barred windows and installed alarms at his villa in Strasslach, south of Munich. Last week Beckurts, 56, lost his battle against ter rorism. On his way to work, Beckurts and the driver of his gray BMW limousine were killed 875 yards from his home when a hidden roadside bomb blew the vehicle across the road and into a fence. A letter filled with Marxist jargon was found near the blast, and identified those responsible for the attack as West Germany's Red Army Faction. The letter claimed that Beckurts, a participant in technical meetings on the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, represented "the current phase of the entire imperialistic system."

Only hours later in Paris, a bomb exploded in a police annex on the Quai de Gesvres, instantly killing Chief Inspector Marcel Basdevant, 54, and wounding 22 police employees. The bombing was the work of Action Directe, a French terrorist band that trumpeted an alliance with West Germany's RAF last year.

The nearly simultaneous explosions led some to fear that a new wave of terrorist activity was under way in Western Europe, following the bombing of the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi by U.S. warplanes in April. The Paris bombing, however, seemed sharply focused on a domestic issue. A communique addressed to the daily Le Monde suggested that a recent decision by the French government to grant police new powers to stop and interrogate suspects may have triggered the terrorists' action. In Bonn, Federal Prosecutor Kurt Rebmann urged West Germans who might be sympathetic to the noble-sounding aims of terrorist groups not to excuse their grisly crimes. The Red Army, he said, "consists merely of perfidious, ordinary murderers." U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz echoed that sentiment in a speech before the Washington press corps last week, calling terrorists "beasts" and warning journalists against becoming "fascinated" with them.

Meanwhile in Genoa, some terrorists were receiving at least some punishment. Six jurors and two judges ordered less than the maximum sentences for several of the Palestinian terrorists charged in the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and the murder of U.S. Tourist Leon Klinghoffer out of sympathy for their youth and the plight of the Palestinians. Though the prosecution sought a life sentence for Youssef Majed al Molqi, 23, who was accused of killing the wheelchair-bound Klinghoffer, the court sentenced him to 30 years.

The leader of the hijacking, Mohammed Abul Abbas Zaidan, received a life sentence in absentia. Ever since he was released by the Italians after the U.S. forced his plane to land in Italy, Abbas has been on the run. In a separate development last week, the Greek government fell into line with other West European governments and asked some 20 Libyan officials to leave Athens.

With reporting by Rhea Schoenthal/Bonn