Terrorists from Hercegovina & Croatian shame

[Ivo Skoric]

I think Racan is hoping that the American government will not
agree to a transfer. It looks good for Racan's government to show 
interest in a release of Croatian 'freedom fighter' from a US prison. 
But it would be disastrous for his government if it actually happens. 
Presence of Busic in Croatia would just boost the political strength 
of the right wing opposition, suffocating Racan's government. He is 
probably calculating that the US, now in business of showing off its 
tough on terrorism position, will never agree to a transfer. So he 
scores points on fighting for a Croatian 'patriot', without actually 
risking being ousted from power. Nice, byzantine move.
ivo

From:           	TEPESHK at aol.com
Date sent:      	Sun, 8 Dec 2002 09:22:19 EST
Subject:        	Terrorists from Hercegovina & Croatian shame
To:             	QueenKatarina1 at aol.com, mplenkovic at yahoo.com, ivo at reporters.net,
  	nevenka.sudar at zg.tel.hr, NancyM3292 at aol.com

New York Times
December 8, 2002

Croatia Seeks Return of La Guardia Hijacker

By JOSEPH P. FRIED

Croatia Seeks Return
Of La Guardia Hijacker
Twenty-six years ago, it was Croatian plane hijackers who spilled blood in 
New York. 

Unlike the Middle Easterners bent on mass murder when they crashed jetliners 
into the World Trade Center last year, the five Croatian nationalists who 
hijacked a Chicago-bound airliner after it left La Guardia Airport in 
September 1976 insisted that killing had not been their aim. They only 
wanted, they said, to publicize demands for the independence of Croatia, then 
part of Yugoslavia.

Indeed, the "bombs" they carried on their hijacking to Paris, where they 
surrendered, turned out to be fakes. But a real bomb that they had left in a 
public locker in the Grand Central subway station, to convince the 
authorities that they had real explosives on the plane, went off as the 
police tried to defuse it, killing one officer, partly blinding another and 
injuring two more.

The hijackers' leader, Zvonko Busic, and his American-born wife, Julienne, 
were sentenced to life in prison for air piracy resulting in a death. The 
three others, convicted of piracy but not of the death of the officer, Brian 
J. Murray, got 30 years.

Mr. Busic admitted that in 1975 he had arrived at La Guardia by plane an hour 
before a bomb there killed 11 people, but he denied involvement in that 
crime. Nobody claimed responsibility, and the case remains unsolved.

Today, Mr. Busic, 56, is in the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan. His wife 
and the three others were paroled in the late 80's, after serving about a 
dozen years.

In Croatia, which declared independence in 1991 and where Julienne Busic now 
lives, Mr. Busic's sympathizers have been calling for his release, or at 
least his transfer to a Croatian prison. 

The Croatian government has tried to arrange such a transfer as a 
"humanitarian issue," its ambassador in Washington, Ivan Grdesic, said last 
week. His government has guaranteed that "it would not release him upon his 
arrival in Croatia," he said, but he doubts that the American government will 
agree to a transfer.

Which is just fine with Terence McTigue, the officer blinded in one eye by 
the hijackers' bomb. Mr. McTigue, who later headed the police bomb squad 
before retiring in 1986, said that even if Mr. Busic was not released in 
Croatia, he "would be put in a country club" there.




Ivo Skoric
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New York NY 10029
212.369.9197
ivo at balkansnet.org
http://balkansnet.org