Bin Laden Bungle Deja Vu: Clinton's Abu Abbas Blunder
When ex-President Bill Clinton decided to pass up a 1996 deal to extradite Osama bin Laden to the United States, it wasn't the first time he let a notorious Mideast terrorist who had killed Americans off the hook.
In May 1996, the same month he turned down Sudan's offer to hand over bin Laden, Clinton refused to enforce a Senate resolution seeking the extradition of Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas, who masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, where New Yorker Leon Klinghoffer was brutally executed.
On May 1, 1996, Clinton held a White House press conference with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat, where the president was asked about the Senate's Abbas extradition resolution.
According to a transcript of the exchange obtained by NewsMax, a reporter asked:
"Mr. President, 99 Senators asked for you to and for Chairman Arafat to authorize the extradition of Abu Abbas, the mastermind of the Achille Lauro hijacking. Will you ask the Justice Department to issue an extradition request?"
The reporter continued, "And, Chairman Arafat, would you honor such a request if it came from the United States?"
Clinton declined to respond to the question, even though it was addressed directly to him. Instead, Arafat stepped up to the microphone and praised Abbas as a peacemaker while the president remained silent.
"We should not forget that Abu Abbas came and attended the PNC and voted to change the Covenant of the PLO and to support the peace process," Arafat told the White House gathering.
Clinton had a good reason to bite his tongue on the Abbas extradition question, since a year earlier he had signed an agreement pardoning all PLO members for terrorist acts committed before the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.
On Wednesday, Palestinian negotiator Saed Erekat invoked the Clinton deal to seek the release of Abbas, who was captured Monday night in Baghdad by U.S. Special Operations forces. A State Department official told Reuters that the 1995 agreement did not apply to the legal status of individuals being held in a third country.
Clinton's decision not to enforce the Senate resolution seeking Abbas' extradition came during the same month he turned down Sudan's offer for bin Laden.
Though former administration officials have denied that any such arrangement was ever in the works, Clinton himself let the cat out of the bag in an address to a New York business group last year.
"We'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again," Clinton told the Long Island Association in February 2002.
"They released [bin Laden]. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."
When ex-President Bill Clinton decided to pass up a 1996 deal to extradite Osama bin Laden to the United States, it wasn't the first time he let a notorious Mideast terrorist who had killed Americans off the hook.
In May 1996, the same month he turned down Sudan's offer to hand over bin Laden, Clinton refused to enforce a Senate resolution seeking the extradition of Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas, who masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, where New Yorker Leon Klinghoffer was brutally executed.
On May 1, 1996, Clinton held a White House press conference with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat, where the president was asked about the Senate's Abbas extradition resolution.
According to a transcript of the exchange obtained by NewsMax, a reporter asked:
"Mr. President, 99 Senators asked for you to and for Chairman Arafat to authorize the extradition of Abu Abbas, the mastermind of the Achille Lauro hijacking. Will you ask the Justice Department to issue an extradition request?"
The reporter continued, "And, Chairman Arafat, would you honor such a request if it came from the United States?"
Clinton declined to respond to the question, even though it was addressed directly to him. Instead, Arafat stepped up to the microphone and praised Abbas as a peacemaker while the president remained silent.
"We should not forget that Abu Abbas came and attended the PNC and voted to change the Covenant of the PLO and to support the peace process," Arafat told the White House gathering.
Clinton had a good reason to bite his tongue on the Abbas extradition question, since a year earlier he had signed an agreement pardoning all PLO members for terrorist acts committed before the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.
On Wednesday, Palestinian negotiator Saed Erekat invoked the Clinton deal to seek the release of Abbas, who was captured Monday night in Baghdad by U.S. Special Operations forces. A State Department official told Reuters that the 1995 agreement did not apply to the legal status of individuals being held in a third country.
Clinton's decision not to enforce the Senate resolution seeking Abbas' extradition came during the same month he turned down Sudan's offer for bin Laden.
Though former administration officials have denied that any such arrangement was ever in the works, Clinton himself let the cat out of the bag in an address to a New York business group last year.
"We'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again," Clinton told the Long Island Association in February 2002.
"They released [bin Laden]. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."