Italian authorities have ordered a Palestinian man expelled after he served his sentence for taking part in the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, which resulted in the murder of an American citizen.
The 43-year-old Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif was freed Monday from a temporary holding center for illegal immigrants in Rome, his lawyer said.
Lawyer Francesco Romeo said authorities have ordered Abdelatif to leave Italy within 15 days. Romeo said a request for political asylum had been turned down, but he plans to appeal the expulsion order because his client "has nowhere to go."
Abdelatif was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon but is not a citizen of that country and Beirut will not let him back in, he said.
Abdelatif was given a 25-year sentence for being a member of the four-man team that took over the Italian cruise ship off the Egyptian coast. During the hijacking an elderly, wheelchair-bound American from New York, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and pushed overboard.
