ITALY: HIJACKER RAFFAELE MINICHIELLO RELEASED AFTER SERVING 18 MONTHS OF A 7 1/2- YEAR SENTENCE.

Record ID: 636805

  • Title: ITALY: HIJACKER RAFFAELE MINICHIELLO RELEASED AFTER SERVING 18 MONTHS OF A 7 1/2- YEAR SENTENCE.
  • Date: 1st May 1971
  • Summary: 1. TV Ext. prison 0.05 2. SV Pressmen outside 0.08 3. SCU (BRING UP SOF) Minichiello emerges and surrounded by pressmen 0.24 4. TV & SV Pressmen gathered around Minichiello(3 shots) 0.24 5. CU Minichiello breaks away from pressmen and enters car followed by his lawyer - car drives away 1.15 Initials OS/225 LD/OS/244 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 16th May 1971 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ROME, ITALY
  • Country: Italy
  • Reuters ID: LVAAAM0Q4FLUZ1QPO343D2IUZIGQ
  • Story Text: Raffaele Minichiello, the 21-year-old Italian-born ex-United States marine who staged the worlds longest hijack in October 1969, was today (Saturday) released from an Italian prison after serving only 18 months of a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for the hijacking.

    Minichiello took over a Trans World Airlines (TWA) Boeing 707 at gunpoint on a Los Angeles-San Francisco flight. Then, with refuelling stops in New York and Shannon (Ireland), he forced the pilots to fly to Rome - a 28-hour journey of 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometres).

    At the time, he was awaiting Court-Martial for robbing a Marine Corps Post Exchange store. During his trial in Rome, he said that he had staged the hold-up to get even with the Marine Corps for "cheating" him out of 200 dollars (about 85 pounds sterling) in combat pay during his tour of duty in Vietnam.

    As he left the Queen of Heaven jail in Rome today, he said that he had no intention of returning to the USA and that, "if I was in the same position I would react in the same way today" because the Court Martial he would have had to face was an "injustice".

    Now, he says, he first wants to see his mother and then look for a job in Italy - preferably Rome.

    VISNEWS Cameraman Pino di Giambattista was jostled and pushed by the milling throng of colleagues outside the prison as Minichiello came out. The effect, however, is one of immediacy and excitement. The shouting and questioning also adds to this effect.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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