Nezar Hindawi

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Nezar Nawwaf al-Mansur al-Hindawi (Arabic: نزار نواف منصور الهنداوي‎, b. 1954) is a Jordanian who was found guilty of attempting to place a bomb on an El Al flight in Heathrow airport, London on April 17, 1986. Hindawi packed the bomb into the carry-on bag of his pregnant Irish fiancée, Anne Marie Murphy. The bomb was found by El Al security. The incident became known as the Hindawi Affair.

1 Background
2 Bombing
3 Rejection of parole board review
4 References

[edit] Background

Hindawi was born in Baqura, Jordan, just south of the Sea of Gallilee. In 1979, after beginning a career as a journalist in Amman, he moved to London.

[edit] Bombing

According to his trial, Hindawi went to Syria in 1985, where he was recruited by officials in Syrian Air Force Intelligence to carry out a bombing on an El Al airliner. Once he received the explosives in London, he gave them to his pregnant fiancée Anne Mary Murphy, who unknowingly took his bag. When she attempted to board her flight from Heathrow Airport to Tel Aviv, El Al security officials stopped her, and the police began a search for Hindawi. Hindawi surrendered to police the following day and was sentenced to 45 years imprisonment. Murphy later gave birth to their daughter.

[edit] Rejection of parole board review

He became eligible for parole in April 2001, having served one third of his sentence. However his application for his case to be reviewed by the parole board, on the basis that he no longer posed a risk due to changes in the political climate in Syria, was rejected by Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2003.

In January 2004, the High Court ruled that this amounted to discrimination on the grounds of nationality, in breach of article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, among other arguments, and gave Hindawi leave to appeal.

The Home Office appealed, and in 2004 the Appeal Court upheld the Home Office's initial rejection. [1]