p^ni_ TexasA&M m ■ i •
The Battalion
Dl. 82 No. 165 CJSPS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, June 24, 1986
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RiENOA, Italy (AP) — A ship’s
waiter testified Monday that Leon
Kllighoffer was silent as his
wheelchair was pushed across the
deck, of the Achille Lauro to a
wailing Palestinian hijacker
armed with an automatic rifle.
Two shots were fired, Manuel
ie [Souza said, then he and the
:rujse liner’s hairdresser, Ferruc-
, H| Alberti, were ordered to
Sudip the 69-year-old American’s
bod\ and his wheelchair into the
Mediterranean Sea.
Kpfhe Portuguese waiter told
udge Lino Monteverde he could
’entify the man who summoned
im from the dining room, where
the|hostages were held, and or
dered him to bring Klinghoffer
out.
De Souza pointed out Youssef
id al-Molqi, who listened
Tom behind the steel bars of his
helping cage in the chamber built
like a bunker beneath a Genoa
courthouse.
C’-The trial indictment describes
Molqi, 23, as the leader of the
four Palestinians who seized the
ship Oct. 7 off Port Said, Egypt,
and subjected nearly 400 hos
tages to two days of terror at sea.
It pilso says Molqi was the man
who killed Klinghoffer with two
bullets from a Kalashnikov as
sault rifle, one in the head and
one in the chest.
Molqi, who confessed to the
killing in pre-trial testimony,
claimed in court last week that he
did not kill Klinghoffer and that
the American was not even
.aboard the ship.
: Monteverde, who is presiding
at die trial of 15 men charged in
the hijacking, asked the waiter
through an interpreter whether
the invalid New Yorker said any
thing as de Souza wheeled him
across the deck.
vNo,” he replied. It was the
fourth day of the trial in this
, re str j c |( t! northern port city, where the
Achille Lauro began its Mediter-
, ( l ranean cruise.
■dical autlwi Alberti, the hairdresser, said
• nt types' he could not identify the hijacker,
adding: “I didn’t even look him in
the face.”
& De Souza said he went inside
^’again to clean the blood caff his
clothes, and Alberti testified that
so left, but was forced to re-
e asked Alberti
d pick the hi-
Hvhen the judg
Tlether he couh
*er out from among the five
eft ndants in the room, he shook
is head.
South Africa drops four treason charges
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
(AP) — Prosecutors dropped
charges Monday against the last four
defendants in a treason case, without
explanation.
Sixteen anti-apartheid activists
originally were charged in the case,
and Monday’s action appeared to
mark the total collapse of the case.
Michael Imber, Natal attorney
general, gave no reason for drop
ping charges against Thozimile Gq-
weta, president of the South African
Allied Workers Union, and union
leaders Sisa Njikaleni, Sam Kikini
and Isaac Ngcobo.
They were accused of high trea
son for allegedy furthering the Afri
can National Congress guerrilla
campaign against President P.W.
Botha’s government.
The treason trial began in Octo
ber in Pietermaritzburg in Natal
province. Charges were dropped in
November against the 12 other activ
ists arrested in May 1985, including
top leaders of the United Demo
cratic Front anti-apartheid coalition.
The Bureau of Information, the
only source of official data under the
emergency, said two mines were
found Sunday on farm roads in
northern Natal and detonated safely
by bomb experts. The African Na
tional Congress has claimed respon
sibility previously for planting mines
in farming areas of Transvaal Prov
ince, north of Natal, that killed seve
ral whites and blacks in recent
months.
In Johannesburg, the Citizen
newspaper said officials feel unrest
has diminished under the emer
gency and it should be continued in
definitely. It attributed the report to
government sources it did not name.
Newsweek correspondent Rich
ard Manning was told to leave South
Africa, apparently because of a
Newsweek cover story called “South
Africa’s Civil War.” He was the sec
ond foreign journalist ordered out
under the emergency.
CBS News cameraman Wim de
Vos, a Dutch citizen, was expelled
last Thursday. Home Minister Stof-
fel Botha gave no reason for or
dering Manning to leave by mid
night Thursday, apart from telling
him, “I have considered it to be in
the public interest to order your re
moval from the republic.” Botha
said Newsweek had until 10 a.m.
Thursday to appeal.
Reagan’s request
for Contra speech
refused by House
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi
dent Reagan asked Monday to ad
dress the House on the eve of its vote
on his request for aid to Nicaraguan
rebels, but House Speaker Thomas
P. O’Neill Jr. denied the request,
saying it would be an “unorthodox
procedure,” virtually unprece
dented in peacetime.
Presidential spokesman Larry
Speakes said Reagan was “deeply
disappointed” that he would not be
accorded the opportunity to make a
final appeal for his $100 million aid
package, scheduled for a House vote
Wednesday.
Speakes said White House chief of
staff Donald T. Regan had called
O’Neill Monday afternoon to ask if
the president might deliver a speech
to the chamber Tuesday before leav
ing for a speech in Las Vegas and a
week’s vacation at his California
ranch.
O’Neill offered the president an
opportunity to appear before a joint
session of Congress, which he said
would be more appropriate. The
speaker said that in so doing, he was
continuing “my practice of support
ing any presidential request to ad
dress ajoint session of the Congress..
. . I offered President Reagan the
opportunity to do so tomorrow
(Tuesday), just as I have done upon
every such presidential request.. . .
“I was told by Mr. Reagan that the
White House did not want the presi
dent to address a joint session, that
the White House wants the presi
dent to appear before a regular
meeting of the House,” the
statement added. “In 1969, Presi
dent Nixon appeared sequentially
before both Houses on the eve of the
Vietnam War protests to thank
members for supporting his conduct
on the war.”
O’Neill said, “Having the presi
dent appear before only one House
to lobby for a legislative proposal
would be unprecedented. The only
justification for such an unorthodox
procedure would be if the president
would use the occasion to participate
in open dialogue with members of
the body. A formal address should
properly be made before ajoint ses
sion.”
He said that his offer for a joint
session remains open.
“On Wednesday, the House votes
on Contra aid for the third time this
year,” he said. “If the House passes
Contra aid in any form, the Senate
will have to act on the matter. Since
future congressional action must oc
cur in both houses, I believe that the
proper forum for an address is the
traditionaljoint session.”
Presidential addresses to a single
house of the Congress are extremely
rare. Speakes said his research
showed only a half-dozen or so cases
in which a president had gone be
fore the House. Most of the cases he
cited involved cases in which U.S.
troops were in combat.
The House vote on aid to the re
bel counter-revolutionaries known
as Contras is expected to be very
close. Speakes said Monday the
White House was still a few votes
short of victory.
Speakes said O’Neill, a steadfast
opponent of Reagan on the issue,
declined the president’s request in a
telephone conversation with Regan,
saying he did not want the issue
“politicized.”
The spokesman said he did not
know whether that word was O’N
eill’s or Regan’s. Comment from the
speaker’s office was not immediately
available.
High Five
Photo by Tom Ownbey
Two intramural co-rec softball players celebrate a victory Monday
afternoon. The games scheduled from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. were
cancelled because of rain and will be made up on Wednesday.
n charged in Kerrville case termed ‘loving’
KERRVILLE — A
an charged with organized crime
as always loving and respectful and
nt money to his divorced mother,
he woman testified Monday in his
Organized crime trial.
Betty Vreeke said her 21-year-old
an, Carlton Robert Caldwell, had
"ouble adjusting to her divorce
rom his father. But he never under
went any personality change because
of the breakup, she said.
Caldwell, Walter Wesley Elle-
bracht Sr., 55, and Walter Wesley El-
lebracht Jr., 33, are charged with vi
olating the state’s organized crime
law in the March 1984 death of
drifter Anthony Bates.
The state contends the Ellebrachts
picked up hitchhikers and took them
to their Hill Country ranch with the
promise of work, forcing them to
stay against their will.
The prosecution also alleges Bates
was tortured to death with an elec
tric cattle prod before his body was
doused with gasoline and burned.
Charred human bone fragments
were found in a burned-out spot on
the ranch, witnesses have testified.
Tape recordings of alleged tor
ture sessions have been played dur
ing the trial. One witness identified
Caldwell’s voice as being among
those on the tapes.
Vreeke, who testified as a defense
witness as the trial’s ninth week be
gan, said she and her former hus
band adopted Caldwell when he was
2 years old. When the youngster was
a teen-ager, she and her husband di
vorced.
Caldwell entered the Army for 10
months and was discharged “be
cause there was trouble with adjust
ment,” she said. During his military
stint, Vreeke said her son sent her
$200 a month so she wouldn’t have
to work full time.
The emergency has imposed un
precedented restrictions on journal
ists.
An Anglican priest in a white par
ish said he faces prosecution if he
does not evict blacks who took ref
uge in his church after their shacks
were burned down at the Crossroads
squatter camp outside Cape Town.
The Rev. Geoff Quinlan said by
telephone from All Saints Church in
a Cape Town suburb that he was
given a summons for allegedly vio
lating the law that prohibits blacks
from living in white areas.
Attorney says
TDC is not
abiding by
court order
HOUSTON (AP) — The Texas
prison system should be held in con
tempt because it is not living up to
court-ordered reforms designed to
improve inmates’ living conditions,
an attorney said Monday.
“They have persistently violated
the court order,” said William Ben
nett Turner, an attorney for the in
mates. “It’s a sad record.”
Turner and attorneys for the state
returned to court in a hearing to de
termine if the state should be held in
contempt of the sweeping reforms
ordered by U.S. District Judge Wil
liam Wayne Justice.
The hearing is expected to con
tinue through the week.
In 1981, Justice ruled that condi
tions in the Texas Department of
Corrections violated the U.S. Consti
tution’s protection against cruel and
unusual punishment.
TDC officials in May 1985 signed
an agreement intended to end court
room battles in the lawsuit, filed in
1972 by inmate David Ruiz.
But Turner later filed a contempt
motion claiming the state has failed
to live up to many of the promises it
made to improve living conditions
for prisoners.
The motion claims seven areas of
noncompliance including a failure to
fully separate violent and non-vio
lent inmates, a lack of basic neces
sities such as showers and outdoor
recreation yards for high-security in
mates and an inadequate medical
staff.
Although prison officials con
ceded they had not yet complied
with all the mandated reforms, they
said improvements have been made.
“We have done an absolutely fan
tastic job of complying with court or
ders,” TDC Board Chairman A1
Hughes said after Monday morn
ing’s hearing.
F. Scott McCown, an assistant to
Attorney General Jim Mattox, said
the state is working hard to comply,
but added that some changes take
more time that others to implement.
A lack of money and other factors
has also slowed the process, McCown
said.
“It’s a tremendous management
problem,” said McCown, who drew
criticism from Justice when he said
prison officials have had “only four
years” to implement reforms.
“Only four years, I don’t much
like that sound,” Justice said. “That’s
a long time — four years.”
t
22
SD! team briefed on A&M's research capability
9 e
Sts
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Staff Writer
Sondra Pickard
Senior Staff Writer
•J
Bpe head of the Strategic Defense
nitiative program and a team of
Dl staffers were briefed in the
exas A&M Board of Regents
hamber Friday in what amounted
3 an appeal for SDI research funds
■ ,iy A&M scientists and administra-
I’ Sen. Phil Gramm accompanied Lt.
>en. James Abrahamson, head of
ie program, and a team of SDI
affers.
y In a press conference prior to the
npryriefing, A&M President Frank E.
DP J'o andiver thanked Gramm for
\/p||g| rin gi n g Abrahamson to Texas, giv-
S * * ^ tg A&M the opportunity to “show
ur wares.”
“I think it is important that uni-
srsities are involved in this kind of
^search,” Vandiver said.
In the briefing, five A&M re-
' :arch scientists made presentations
utlining several aspects of work
erfprmed here including space re
tard!, molecular electronics, elec-
o-optics, manufacturing systems
ad accelerator science.
At the press conference, some of
Senator challenges critics
on fairness of tax plan
Photo by Anthony S. Casper
From left, A&:M President Frank Vandiver, Sen. Phil Gramm and Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson.
the major grievances critics have
with SDI research at universities
were addressed by Gramm, Abra
hamson, Vandiver and Board of Re
gents Chairman David Eller.
In response to a question concern
ing the classified nature of SDI re
search and the scientist’s ability to
publish findings, Abrahamson said
the great majority of work available
for universities is unclassified and
should remain so.
Some of the research will be classi
fied, he said, but only with the re
searching scientist’s permission and
foreknowledge.
Gramm and Vandiver addressed
a number of their remarks to the op
position SDI research faces by a
See SDI, page6
WASHINGTON (AP) — On
the eve of a Senate vote on a land
mark tax-revision plan, Treasury
Secretary James A. Baker III
challenged critics who claim the
bill shortchanges middle-income
Americans.
“It’s true that they get less of a
tax reduction than lower-income
Americans,” Baker said Monday.
“It’s really not true that they get a
significantly lower reduction than
upper-income Americans.”
The dispute over relief for
middle-income taxpayers will cost
the bill the unanimous vote that
leaders of both parties had once
predicted. Sen. Carl Levin, D-
Mich., announced Monday he
will vote no because “this bill gives
us some reform, but it also gives
us some new unfairness.”
Baker, appearing on NBC-
TV’s “Today” show, noted esti
mates that people with incomes
between $30,000 and $40,000 a
year would get tax cuts averaging
5 percent under the bill, while
those above $200,000 would re
ceive a 4.7 percent cut.
“I think that’s not really a valid
objection,” he said.
The Treasury secretary, who
has worked closely with the
House and Senate as they wrote
their differing tax bills over the
last year, said “the president likes
the Senate bill pretty well.”
“All in all, I think it is a very,
very good bill and we like it a lot,”
Baker said. “We wouldn’t mind
seeing it passed as is.”
That is expected to happen,
sometime after 4 p.m. today,
when the vote on the overall bill is
scheduled. “It’s going to be a big,
big win — almost unanimous,”
Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan
said.
The Senate was working its
way through a stack of minor
amendments Monday to clear the
way for the final vote.
Senate passage would send the
bill to a conference committee,
which will work out a compro
mise between the Senate version
and the one passed last December
by the House.