--- title: The Achille Lauro Case and the Death of Leon Klinghoffer description: Oct. 7, 1985: Palestinian terrorists hijack an Italian cruise ship and kill an American passenger canonical: https://time.com/4055773/achille-lauro/ author: Jennifer Latson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-07T14:30:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:23:56.768Z article:section: History og:title: The Achille Lauro Case and the Death of Leon Klinghoffer og:description: Oct. 7, 1985: Palestinian terrorists hijack an Italian cruise ship and kill an American passenger og:url: https://time.com/4055773/achille-lauro/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0dd63135c7b6fe33/698866390b72e3324a6e619d/achille.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro leaves og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Achille Lauro Case and the Death of Leon Klinghoffer twitter:description: Oct. 7, 1985: Palestinian terrorists hijack an Italian cruise ship and kill an American passenger twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0dd63135c7b6fe33/698866390b72e3324a6e619d/achille.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A Murder That Shocked the World, at Sea and on Stage > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Oct 7, 2015 2:30 PM UTC  Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro leaves Port Said harbor on October 10, 1985 after Egyptian authorities stopped it from sailing to the Israeli port of Ashdod. Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro leaves Port Said harbor on October 10, 1985 after Egyptian authorities stopped it from sailing to the Israeli port of Ashdod. Mike Nelson—AFP/Getty Images by [Jennifer Latson](https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/) ## Jennifer Latson Oct 7, 2015 2:30 PM UTC The four men were not Norwegian, as they had told a cruise ship hostess, and they weren’t there to play shuffleboard. On this day, Oct. 7, 30 years ago, members of the Palestine Liberation Front hijacked an Italian liner, the _Achille Lauro_, during a Mediterranean cruise and took more than 400 passengers and crewmembers hostage. Many of the passengers were American—and they received the roughest treatment during the two-day ordeal. According to [TIME’s 1985 account](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,960163,00.html), the hijackers, armed with hand grenades and Soviet submachine guns, separated American and British passengers from those of other nationalities. They placed gas cans nearby and said they’d kill these hostages first if their political demands, including the release of 50 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel, weren’t met. Then they followed through with their threat, killing the American who was perhaps least able to defend himself: Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish New Yorker who had been confined to a wheelchair since he was disabled by a stroke. The terrorists shot him in the head and threw his body, and his wheelchair, into the sea. Klinghoffer’s murder provoked so much outrage in the U.S. that President Reagan ordered Navy fighter pilots to undertake [a daring mission](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,960162,00.html) to bring the hijackers to justice. Six years later, however, the public shifted its outrage to a new target: the artistic team behind a 1991 opera, _The Death of Klinghoffer_. Although [TIME’s reviewer](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,972615-1,00.html) found it relatively tame—a “sweet, sorrowful” production that “takes no prisoners, and takes no sides either,” others, including Klinghoffer’s surviving relatives, [felt differently](http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/11/arts/klinghoffer-daughters-protest-opera.html). When the opera was reprised last year at the Met, crowds of protesters (including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani) [picketed outside](http://time.com/3528065/metropolitan-opera-house-giluliani-klinghoffer-john-adams-protests/), accusing the production of glorifying terrorism and promoting an anti-Semitic agenda. In a statement published in the opera playbill, Klinghoffer’s daughters, Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, [voiced their own discontent](http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/terrorism/adl-releases-statement-from-klinghoffer-daughters.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/#.VgXCu2TBzGc) with the opera’s portrayal of the villains. They wrote: --- > “” --- But, they argued, “\[t\]errorism cannot be rationalized. It cannot be understood.” Opera-goers, meanwhile, gave the production [mixed reviews](http://time.com/3529368/klinghoffer-opera/). According to one viewer, [interviewed by _The Guardian_](http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/21/the-death-of-klinghoffer-panel-art-censor), “the production achieved a transformative level of transcendence.” In the words of another, it had “the deft touch of a sledgehammer.” **_Read more from 1985, here in the TIME archives_**: [Terrorism: The Voyage of the _Achille Lauro_](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,960163,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4055773/achille-lauro/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4055773/achille-lauro/"},"headline":"A Murder That Shocked the World, at Sea and on Stage","datePublished":"2015-10-07T14:30:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:23:56.768Z","description":"Oct. 7, 1985: Palestinian terrorists hijack an Italian cruise ship and kill an American passenger","url":"https://time.com/4055773/achille-lauro/","keywords":["conflict","Crime","Terrorism","Opera"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0dd63135c7b6fe33/698866390b72e3324a6e619d/achille.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jennifer Latson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jennifer-latson/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0dd63135c7b6fe33/698866390b72e3324a6e619d/achille.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro leaves","caption":"Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro leaves","creditText":"Mike Nelson—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/conflict/","name":"conflict"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4055773/achille-lauro/","name":"A Murder That Shocked the World, at Sea and on Stage"}}]}] ```