Suspect in TWA hijacking to be tried as juvenile

FRANKFURT, West Germany A Lebanese suspect in the 1985 hijackingof a TWA jetliner and murder of a U.S. sailor will be tried by ajuvenile tribunal because he was a minor at the time, a court ruledTuesday.

The maximum prison term for the offense is only 10 years for ajuvenile. But the trial court still could impose a life sentence ifit found that Mohammed Ali Hamadi acted as an adult in committing thecrime, authorities said.

Hamadi is accused as an accomplice in the hijacking of TWAFlight 847. It was seized June 14, 1985, on a flight from Athens,Greece, to Rome and diverted to the Beirut airport.

The hijackers held 39 U.S. citizens hostage for 17 days, andNavy diver Robert Stethem was killed.

Prosecutors at first said Hamadi was born June 13, 1964, whichwould have made him an adult under West German law when the hijackingtook place.

But the suspect testified in January that he was born in June,1968, which would make him barely 17 at the time of the crime. Theprosecutors said Tuesday they now have learned that Hamadi actuallyis 21, and thus was 18 at the time.