Munich terrorist 'regrets nothing'

Jan. 28, 2006 18:49 | Updated Jan. 29, 2006 5:46
Munich terrorist 'regrets nothing'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERLIN

A former Palestinian terrorist said he "regrets nothing" and will not apologize for being one of the masterminds of the 1972 attack at the Munich Olympics in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed, according to a TV interview transcript released Saturday.

Mohammed Oudeh, better known by the code name Abu Daoud, said it was up to Palestinians to "fight as long as it takes Israel to recognize our rights."

"I regret nothing" about the Munich attacks, the former Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist told Germany's Spiegel TV, according to a transcript of the interview released before its broadcast. "You can only dream that I would apologize."

Spiegel TV said they spoke with the 68-year-old, who lives in Damascus, Syria, last week in Cairo.

Daoud was a member of a shadowy Palestinian terrorist group called Black September that took Israeli weightlifters hostage at the 1972 Olympic Games. Eleven Israelis, three of the Palestinian attackers and a German police officer were killed during a near two-day standoff.

Daoud told Spiegel TV he brought the weapons involved in the attack by train from Frankfurt to Munich in various suitcases, then stored them in lockers before distributing them to his team when they arrived. He had previously scouted the Olympic village, and said he had no problem reaching inner areas.

"Nobody checked us," he said.

Daoud reiterated what he said in his 1999 autobiography that the intent was never to kill the Israeli athletes.

He was also quoted as saying the members of the Black September group killed by Israeli agents through the 1970s were the wrong people.

"The people who were shot all had nothing to do with Munich," he said.

German police issued an arrest warrant for Daoud in 1999 after he revealed in his book the role he had played in the attack.

American director Steven Spielberg's film "Munich" has recently drawn attention to the Olympic attack.

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