Panama announced on Sunday that Venezuela had arrested on its territory a suspect in the 1994 bombing of a Panamanian airliner, which was attributed to the Lebanese Hezbollah, and which resulted in the killing of 21 people, most of them Jews.
Alas Chiricanas Flight 901 exploded after taking off from an airport in the Colon province of Panama on the night of July 19, 1994.
All passengers on the plane were killed, most of them from the Jewish community in this Central American country, including three Americans.
This bombing is the worst terrorist attack in the history of Panama.
The Interpol office in Caracas confirmed to its Panamanian counterpart the arrest of Venezuelan citizen Ali Zaki Hajjalil, according to what Panamanian police said in a statement.
The statement added that the arrest took place on November 6 on Margarita Island in the Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparra, noting that extradition procedures for Hajj Jalil are underway.
The Panamanian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Saturday that it had initiated “diplomatic and legal measures” to bring the suspect to Panamanian justice.
The Ministry also expressed its concern about “the presence and residence of a person in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela without accountability,” even though he is “clearly linked to the terrorist attack on Flight 901.”
In October 2014, the United States offered a reward of five million dollars for information related to the plane bombing, which Washington linked to a possible attack by suicide bombers affiliated with the Lebanese Hezbollah group.
The Panamanian judiciary reopened the investigation after the visit of then-Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela in 2018 to Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed him that Israeli intelligence had concluded that the incident was a “terrorist attack” that Hezbollah was likely to have carried out.
