“Clipper 103 requesting oceanic clearance” THE CRIME: It was a small Scottish town 32 km (20 mi) from the England border and 121 km (75 mi) from Glasgow that became internationally known on Wednesday 21 December 1988. The wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103, a Boeing 747-121, named Clipper Maid of the Seas, landed there,… Read More »
“They took the two terrorists, pushed them against the wall and shot them” THE CRIME: To many Britons in the spring of 1980 Iran was a “far away country of which we knew little”. There had been the news of the Shah’s overthrow the previous year but it had not affected Britain directly. That all… Read More »
“Our opponents do not dare act against us” THE CRIME: In January 1979 the Shah of Iran was deposed and on 22 October he travelled to America for treatment for cancer. In Teheran the action infuriated Muslim students, several hundred of whom stormed the American embassy, taking 66 diplomats hostage. Six diplomats avoided capture and… Read More »
“The second-deadliest terrorist attack in modern history” THE CRIME: The Rex cinema in a poor district of Iran called Abadan was a popular venue in the last days of the Shah. On a hot summer’s day in 1978 Muslim militants set it ablaze, killing 422 patrons. They had gathered to watch a controversial anti-government film… Read More »
“I’m no Nazi … I am an idealist” THE CRIME: At 12.30pm on 27 June 1976 Air FranceFlight 139, an Airbus A300 with 238 passengers and a crew of 12, originating at Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv, left Athens for Paris. Shortly into the flight, two Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation… Read More »
Carlos had been paid around $30 million for the hostages. THE CRIME: Ilich Ramirez Sanchez was born on 12 October 1949 in Caracas, Venezuela, and joined the communist party in 1959. He became a guerrilla in January 1966 and later that year went to study at the London School of Economics. He enrolled at the… Read More »
“Liberty still has its vigilant defenders” THE CRIME: Alan Ross and his twin Norris Dewar McWhirter created and edited The Guinness Book of Records. In 1974, IRA bombers were plaguing London and there had been 40 attacks in a year, including the accidental murder of cancer specialist Gordon Hamilton-Fairey in Campden Hill Square on the… Read More »
“Money means nothing to us. Our lives mean nothing to us” THE CRIME: The innocence of the Olympic Games was wrecked forever in 1972 in Munich, West Germany. At 4.30am on 5 September eight masked men broke into the Olympic Village and entered the Israeli athletes’ quarters. They were members of Black September, a group… Read More »