AchilleLauro is a cruise ship formerly known as WillemRuys. Built in 1947, the ship went on its maiden voyage on December 2, 1947 and was 192 meters long, 25 meters high, weighed 21110 gross tons and had the capacity to carry 900 passengers. After being purchased by the LauroLine company in 1964, her name was changed and she returned to the seas in 1966 after extensive maintenance work.
A fire broke out off the coast of Somalia on 30 November 1994, causing serious damage to the ship, and it sank three days later.
On 7 October 1985, four members of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) seized the Achille Lauro en route from the Egyptian port of Alexandria to Port Said in response to an Israeli attack on the PLO headquarters in Tunisia on 1 October. The pirates demanded that the ship dock at the Syrian port of Tartus and that 50 Palestinians in Israeli prisons be released.
When their demands were rejected, they killed Leon Klinghoffer, a paralyzed Jewish passenger, and threw him overboard.
After the incident, the ship returned to Port Said and after two days of negotiations, the pirates agreed to abandon the ship. They wanted to be diverted to Tunisia on an Egyptian plane, but US warplanes forced the plane to a NATO base in Sicily and the hijackers were arrested by Italian authorities. Their leader AbuAbbas and the other passengers were later allowed to go to Tunisia.
AbuAbbas was tried in an Italian court, found guilty, and apologized for the kidnapping and Klinghoffer's death in 1996; This apology was not accepted by the US government and Klinghoffer's family. Abbas was captured in Iraq in 2003 and died in prison on March 8, 2004.