Abu Abbas was such a threat that Israel offered him amnesty:
When Abbas was captured, the Palestinian Authority demanded his release, saying the United States had pledged not to prosecute him as part of a blanket promise not to press charges against Palestinians who acted against Israel before interim peace accords were signed in the 1990s.
The United States also endorsed a 1995 interim peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians which grants PLO members immunity for violent acts committed before September 1993, when the two sides signed a mutual recognition agreement.
Abu Abbas has been a marginal figure in the PLO. Abbas, 55, was a member of the PLO's executive committee, but left in 1991. His tiny faction has very few followers in the West Bank and Gaza. According to Israel's Shin Bet security service, the PLF has sent some members to Iraq for military training.
In April 1996, Abu Abbas visited Gaza for the first time, as part of the amnesty offered by Israel. At the time, he apologized for the killing of Klinghoffer.
In 1998, he returned to attend a session of the Palestine National Council, the Palestinians' parliament-in-exile, for a crucial vote on abrogating chapters of the PLO founding charter calling for Israel's destruction. In the end, Abul Abbas did not participate in the vote.
At that time, Israeli attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein said Abu Abbas did not pose a threat to Israeli security, and that it would be unreasonable to prosecute him for acts committed before 1993.
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