1.
GV Accused women in dock
0.03

2.
CU Halaseh & PAN Miss Tannous
0.14

3.
SV Defendants rise PAN TO judges entering & sitting
0.32

4.
SV ZOOM IN Accused listening to charges & names being read
0.50

5.
CU Judge, PULL BACK TO GV tribunal
0.58

6.
SV Defendants nodding PAN both girls
1.15

7.
SV People in court room
1.20

8.
SV Defendants replying, Tannous speaking
1.31



Initials SGM/0331 SGM/0359



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The trial of two Arab Palestinian girls charged with complicity in the hijacking of a Belgian airliner last May has started before a three man tribunal in Israel. The girls, Theresa Ishaq Halaseh and Rima Issa Tannous, pleaded not guilty. Miss Tannous told the court she had carried arms and explosives as charged, but that she had acted under duress. She also told the court she was inducted into the El Fatah guerrilla organisation against her will. Miss Halaseh, who was wounded in the hijacking attempt, pleaded not guilty to all four counts against her.

The two girls are survivors of a group of four guerrillas who seized a Sabena jetliner flying from Rome for Tel Aviv and threatened to blow it up with 100 passengers and crew aboard unless Israel agreed to free a large number of Arab prisoners. Israeli troops disguised as technicians stormed the 'plane at Lydda airport and killed the other two hijackers, both men.